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THE DISILLUSIONS 
OF A CROWN PRINCESS 



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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



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RASPUTIN 

AND THE RUSSIAN 
REVOLUTION 



With Sixteen Illustration. 



"The whole volume is a bright light in 
dark places. It does not reach to the end 
of Russia's road, but it serves to define 
some of the difficulties ahead. It makes 
the Lenines and Trotzkys stand out with 
the distinctness of a vivid warning." 

— New York Sun, 



•3 




Photograph, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

Cecile, Ex-Crown Princess of Germany 
IN 18th Century Costume 



i 



THE 

DISILLUSIONS 

OF A 

CROWN PRINCESS 

BEING THE STORY OF THE 

COURTSHIP AND MAERIED LIFE OF 
CECILE, EX-CROWN PRINCESS OF GERMANY 

BY 

PRINCESS CATHERINE RADZIWILL 

(COUNT Px\UL VASSILI) ' 

AUTHOR OF 

•behind tee veil at the RUSSIAN COURT," 

"RASPUTIN AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION," 

"GERMANY UNDER THREE EMPERORS," 

ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 

MCMXIX 






Bt Tsz Ivtz?.;.^- 



1919, 

-LAGAaSS COMPASY 



COPTBIGHT, 1919, 

By JOHN LAXE COAJPAN'Y 



Uto 2G ISI9 



J.J.LillleftlTesOii. 

KcwYork.U.S,A- 



©aA561084 



CONTENTS 

IHAPTEB PAGE 

I The Grand Duchess Anastasia of 

Russia 11 

II Childhood and Early Years ... 21 

III The Death of the Grand Duke of 

Mecklemburg 30 

IV The Marriage of the Princess Alex- 

andrine 40 

V A Fairy Prince ....... 49 

VI William, Crown Prince of Germany 58 

VII At Florence 68 

VIII Marrlvge 77 

IX The Surroundings and Court of the 

New Crown Princess .... 86 

X The Clo^'en Foot Begins to Show . 95 

XI A Young Wife's Misery .... 104 

XII The Sphinx BY Moonlight . . . 113 

XIII What People Thought About the 

Crown Princess in Berlin . . . 124 

XIV The Crown Prince's Return . . 133 

XV Mother, Mother, Why Can't You 

Come to Me 142 

5 



CHAPTEE 

XVI 
X\II 
XVII 

XIX 



XXI 

XXII 

XXIII 



Contents 

The Crown Prince's Brutality 
In the Name of the Emferor 
Years op Sadness .... 
Royalty's Last Pagant 
The Beginning of the End 
The Fall of the Colossus 
The Necessity of Resignation 
The Friend in Need . . . 



PAGE 

151 
162 
171 
180 
189 
198 
207 
215 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Cecile, Ex-Crown Princess of Germany in 18th Century 

Costume Frontispiece 



The Ex-Crown Princess with Her Brother and Sister 
The Princess Alexandrine and the Grand Duchess of 

Mecklemburg-Schwerin ..... 
King Christian and Queen Alexandrine of Denmark 
Grand Duke Michael Nicholayewitsch and His Wife 
The Crown Prince at the Time of His Marriage 
Frederick William, Ex-Crown Prince of Germany , 
Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholayewitsch of Russia , 
Ex-Crown Princess Cecile . . . « . 
The Kaiserin in 1881 , . . . , . 

The Kaiser in 1883 ....;., 
The Ex-Crown Prince and Ex-Crown Princess » 
Ex-Crown Princess and Sons . . • . 

The Ex-Crown Prince with His Wife and Three Sons 
The Ex-Crown Princess with Her Two Oldest Sons and 

the Grand Duchess of Mecklemburg-Schwerin . 
The Daughter and Son-in-Law of the Ex-Kaiser 



PAGB 

22 



30 
42 
46 
68 
68 
66 
78 
86 
86 
94 
102 
112 

130 
180 



8 ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

The Ex-Kaiserin, the Ex-Crown Princess and Her Little 

Daughter ........ 196 

The Empress Frederick 206 

The Emperor Frederick III ..... 206 



THE DISILLUSIONS 
OF A CROWN PRINCESS 



THE DISILLUSIONS OF A 
CROWN PRINCESS 

CHAPTER I 

THE GRAND DUCHESS ANASTASIA 
OF RUSSIA 

It was a bright winter's day. The vast halls of 
the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg were filled 
with a gTeat crowd of people eager to catch a 
glimpse of one of the fairest brides that had ever 
been led to the altar of its chapel. The Imperial 
Family and the Court were celebrating the nuptials 
of the niece of the Czar Alexander II, the daugh- 
ter of his favourite brother, the Grand Duchess 
Anastasia Michaylowna of Russia, with the heir to 
the Duchy of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, and to one 
of the largest private fortunes in Europe. 

The bride was barely eighteen, a tall, superb girl 
with wonderful brown eyes, shght and slim in ap- 
pearance, and with that distinguished look which 
education alone does not give, but which proceeds 

11 



12 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

from a long line of ancestors, all of them used to 
command and to occupy a prominent position in 
the world. The bridegroom, a handsome man, but 
extremely frail and delicate, looked tenderly at the 
splendid ^^^c^i^uj^n whom he was about to make his 
wife. All the great world, not only of Russia but 
also of foreign lands, was there, had gathered to 
witness the interesting ceremony. But few knew 
that this marriage, which had given rise to so many 
discussions, and which had been so variously com- 
mented upon by the public in two countries, was a 
love match on one side only — that whilst the Prince 
of Mecklenburg was devoted to the voung Princess 
to whom he was pledging his faith, she had been 
almost compelled to accept him as her husband by 
parents eager to secure for their daughter a mag- 
nificent estabhshment, with the prospect of a Grand 
Ducal CTown in the near future. 

Anasta-sia Michaylowna had been brought up 
most strictly. Her mother, an exceedingly clever 
but imperious woman, had ruled her family and 
hauseiudd with an iron hand, and had never 
allovred any of her children to object to the ar- 
rangements made in regard to their education and 
training. She had watched over them with unusual 



The Grand Duchess Anastasia 13 

care, with the result that all her sons, as well as 
her only daughter, became distinguished people, 
very different from the other Grand Dukes and 
Grand Duchesses, whose only aim in life seemed 
to be pleasure and enjoyment of the good things 
it had to offer them. The family of the Grand 
Duke Michael Nicholayewitsch proved an exception 
to this rule, thanks to the solicitude with which he 
and his wife had striven to develop in the young 
minds which Providence had committed to their 
care, a sense of their responsibility in the world. 
But at the same time they had never allowed any of 
their decisions to be discussed, and when the Grand 
Duchess Anastasia was told that she had to marry 
the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, she 
did not for one single moment think of asserting 
herself, or saying that she did not care to be sent 
so far away from her native land, and that the per- 
sonality of her intended bridegroom did not inspire 
her with enthusiasm. 

This did not mean that the Prince was not at- 
tractive. On the contrary, he was a charming, 
clever and handsome man, with extremely pleasant 
manners, and a general favourite in society. Even 
in St. Petersburg, where, as a rule, foreigners were 



14 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

not looked upon with favour at the time I am writ- 
ing of, he had made himself popular during his fre- 
quent visits to the Russian capital, the residence of 
his sister, the wife of the Grand Duke Wladimir. 
Unfortunately, to counterbalance these attractions 
which, added to his fortune and general prospects, 
made him one of the most coveted "partis" in Eu- 
rope, the Grand Duke had since his childhood been 
extremely dehcate, and suffered from a heart com- 
plaint which compelled him to remain sometimes 
for weeks in a recumbent position, and obhged him 
to spend all his winters in the South. This would 
not perhaps have been so important, though it is 
easy to understand that no girl cares to become the 
nurse of an invalid from the very first day of her 
marriage, but there was something worse than this, 
because the Prince, in addition to his chronic ail- 
ment, suffered from another, far more objection- 
able. He used to get periodical attacks of eczema 
on the face and body, which necessitated his re- 
tiring into complete seclusion for long periods of 
time. This did not make him an attractive hus- 
band, and the hesitation, disgust and apprehensions 
of the young Grand Duchess can easily be under- 
stood. Unfortunately for her, she had made no 



The Grand Duchess Anastasia 15 

secret of her repugnance, and busybodies had in- 
formed the Prince of it ; consequently he found him- 
self, from the first day of his marriage, in an em- 
barrassing position. He was ardently in love with 
his bride, but he did not feel sufficiently courageous 
to try to win her over to him and induce her to 
look upon him with lenient eyes. A misunder- 
standing existed between them from the first hour 
of their union, and, unfortunately for Anastasia 
Michaylowna, it grew as time went on, until at last 
the great world of the whole of Europe began to 
comment upon it. | 

The young couple left Russia for Mecklenburg 
immediately after their wedding. There the Prin- 
cess found herself thrown into a circle thoroughly 
uncongenial to her, and, furthermore, discovered 
that considerable hostility against her had existed 
long before she had arrived to take up her place at 
the Court of Schwerin. Her father-in-law was 
married to a haughty and, at the same time, dowdy 
woman, who from the first moment that she had set 
eyes upon Anastasia Michaylowna, had begun to 
hate her for the immense dowry which she had 
brought, for her splendid jewels, and her lovely 
clothes, which surpassed everything that Mecklen- 



i6 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

burg had ever seen before. The Palace of Schwerin, 
though magnificent, was a gloomy building, where 
the bride found herself lonely and unhappy, and 
where she was not even allowed to arrange her own 
apartments according to her personal taste. The 
ladies of the court were mostly old frumps, with- 
out interests in life beyond that of their household 
occupations and the exigencies of the strictest of 
etiquette. They did not approve of Anastasia 
Michaylowna;they thought her fast and giddy, and 
they soon made her life a perfect burden. It was 
not strange, therefore, that the impetuous and ar- 
dent girl should take the bit between her teeth, and 
declare that she would not live in Mecklenburg for 
anything in the world. It was easy for her to win 
her husband over to her point of view. The 
poor man would have done anything to please her, 
and perhaps at heart was himself not so very sorry 
to escape the dull atmosphere of Schwerin for more 
congenial climes. His health furnished him with an 
excellent pretext for spending part of the year 
abroad, and immediately after the birth of Anas- 
tasia's first child, the Princess Alexandrine^ who 
was later on to become Queen of Denmark, the 
Hereditary Grand Duke and Duchess started for 



The Grand Duchess Anastasia 17 

Italy, where they spent almost uninterruptedly the 
next three or four years, until the death of the 
Grand Duke of Mecklenburg obliged them to re- 
turn to Schwerin, of which Prince Frederic Fran- 
cis became tlie Sovereign. 

Anastasia tried to play the Queen for a few 
months, and then found that she could not bear it. 
But when she expressed her intention of returning 
to Italy or France for the winter months, she found 
herself confronted by an opposition she had never 
expected. The people of Mecklenburg would not 
hear of their Grand Duke not taking up his resi- 
dence among them, and his wife was severely criti- 
cised for wishing him to do otherwise. The ques- 
tion of his health was declared to be merely a pre- 
text, and public disapproval became so strong that 
the question was raised whether the Sovereign ought 
not to be asked to abdicate in favour of his baby 
son, under whose name the country could be ad- 
ministered by a Regent. 

But there Anastasia Michaylowna's spirit rose 
up in anger. She would not consent to such a thing. 
The Grand Duke was the lawful Sovereign of his 
realm, and he could do what he liked in regard to 
his own personal residence, the more so that Meek- 



i8 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

lenburg had no constitution, and that he was an 
absolute monarch. She, of course, carried the day, 
and a compromise was finally effected, by virtue of 
which the Grand Ducal pair were to reside five 
months of the year in ]Mecklenburg, and could re- 
main where they Hked for the rest of the time, on 
condition, however, that any children they might 
have were to be born in IVIecklenbarg. It is to 
this circimistance that is due the fact that the Prin- 
cess Cecile- Augusta-Mary, who was to become the 
wife of the German Crown Prince, saw the light 
of the day in the old castle of Schwerin on the 20th 
of September, 1886. 

She was but a few weeks old when her mother 
carried her away to Cannes, where she had acquired 
one of the loveliest villas of this lovely place, to 
which she gave the name of the Villa Wenden. It 
was a palace rather than a country house, and the 
refined taste of Anastasia Michaylowna furnished 
and arranged it with exquisite taste. It became 
her favourite residence and she lived there more 
like a private person than a Sovereign, seeing her 
niunerous friends in an informal way, and plapng 
hostess to all the illustrious ones who flocked to the 
Riviera during the winter months. She used to 



The Grand Duchess Anastasia 19 

spend her money lavishly, much to the disgust of 
the people of Mecklenburg, who said openly that 
she had no right to squander abroad resources which 
would have been better employed in her own, or 
rather, in her husband's country. Soon a legend 
was formed around her, and she became the victim 
of the most unsparing criticism. This only infuri- 
ated her, and made her take a special delight in 
shocking the people who condemned her for no 
other reason than because she did not care to live 
among them. She was very fond, perhaps too fond, 
of the gambling tables at Monte Carlo, where she 
could often be seen staking thousands of francs at 
the Trente et Quarante, whilst everybody knew that 
the Grand Duke had been compelled to remain in 
Cannes on account of an attack of one or the other 
of his numerous ailments. Of course people con- 
demned the Grand Duchess for her apparent heart- 
lessness, and none among all her so-called friends 
and acquaintances had sufficient honesty and gen- 
erosity to try to make the world understand that, 
blamable though her conduct might appear, it pro- 
ceeded more from a spirit of bravado than from any 
ill feehng towards her invalid husband. The latter 
was perhaps the only one who understood what was 



20 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

going on in the soul and heart of his beautiful wife, 
because he never blamed her; on the contrary, he 
always stood by her and defended her against her 
numerous adversaries. Frederick Francis's nature 
was a chivalrous one, and, besides, never while he 
lived did he cease to love his wife and to trust her, 
a fact of which she was aware, and for which, though 
she did not own to it in public, she felt at heart most 
grateful. 



CHAPTER II 

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 

The Grand Duke and Duchess of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin had three children. One son, who in due 
time succeeded his father, and who at the present 
day is one of the numerous dispossessed German 
Sovereigns in quest of a home and vocation in the 
world, and two daughters, of whom the eldest was 
to become Queen of Denmark, whilst the youngest 
is the lovable Princess whose sad story I am about 
to relate. Cecile Augusta Mary was from her baby 
days a charming little creature, full of fun and 
mirth, always kind and good, and always ready to 
help others. She was her father's favourite, and 
during the long days when he was confined to his 
room, unable to see anybody, it was his little daugh- 
ter who was his constant companion. Cecile was 
an amusing child, with a sense of humour rarely 
met with in Germany. There, as a rule, people are 
solemn and dignified, especially in the royal and 
imperial circles to which the little Princess belonged. 

21 



22 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

Her Mecklenburg relations used to say that her 
mother brought her up very badly, because the 
Grand Duchess insisted on her children being al- 
lowed to enjoy perfect liberty in their childish 
games and amusements. She dressed them very 
simply, and let them romp on the beach in Meck- 
lenburg, and especially at Cannes, where they w^ere 
permitted to remain for whole afternoons stretched 
out on the sand, clothed in the scantiest and plain- 
est of garments, and playing with other babes some- 
times much more richly attired than themselves. 
One of the greatest pleasures of Cecile and her sis- 
ter was to be taken by their beautiful mother to 
drink chocolate and eat cakes at Rumpelmayers, the 
fashionable confectioner of Cannes, and to drive 
about with her in the woods and mountains sur- 
rounding the lovely French health resort. The 
Grand Duchess Anastasia was passionately fond of 
her French home, where she could enjoy the society 
of her father, the aged Grand Duke Michael, and 
her brothers, who always wintered there. She sur- 
rounded herself with Russians and with French- 
men, occasionally with Englishmen and Americans, 
and always avoided Germans, who inspired her with 
a dislike she never took the trouble to dissimulate- 




Photograph, Undcrzvood & Underwood, N. Y. 



The E.x-Crown Princess (Left) 
With Her Brother and Her Sister 



Childhood and Early Years 23 

dislike which was intensified in later years when, a 
few months before her husband's death, the latter 
received an impertinent letter from the Kaiser, ad- 
vising him to divorce his wife, who, as he expressed 
it, "was not fit to occupy the position of a reigning 
German Princess." The insult rankled in the mind 
of Anastasia Michaylowna, and she was never to 
forgive or forget it. 

When Princess Cecile w^as ten years old the ques- 
tion arose of choosing a governess for her. Her 
mother wished a Frenchwoman to be entrusted with 
the task of superintending her education, because 
she had not been quite satisfied with the manner in 
which the German instructress of her eldest daugh- 
ter, the Princess Alexandrine, had performed her 
task; but there the Grand Duke interfered, saying 
that he feared the choice of a lady belonging to the 
nation which was supposed to be the irreconciliable 
enemy of Germany would excite such indignation 
in Mecklenburg that the unpopularity of his con- 
sort would become more pronounced than ever. A 
compromise was effected between husband and wife, 
and an Englishwoman was selected as teacher and 
companion of the Princess Cecile, whose eldest sis- 
ter about that time became engaged to Prince 



24 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

Christian of Denmark, the eldest grandson of the 
old King. She was a bonnie Princess, this sweet 
Alexandrine, with the lovely eyes and splendid fig- 
ure of her mother, and the pleasant smile of her 
father. Her marriage was entirely one of affection, 
and though it was not approved of at Berlin, where 
the Kaiser would have perf erred seeing her become 
the bride of some Prussian Prince, it proved popu- 
lar in Mecklenburg, where the people felt flattered 
at the prospect of their Princess becoming in time 
a Queen, and where there had existed a fear that 
she would eventually be married in Russia, to some 
relative of the unpopular and much-dishked Grand 
Duchess; so great preparations for the wedding 
were made everywhere, and public subscriptions 
were started in order to purchase. handsome wed- 
ding presents for the future bride. Prince Chris- 
tian came to spend part of the summer with his be- 
trothed at Doberan in ^Mecklenburg, where the 
Grand Ducal family generally lived during the 
warm season, and he endeared himself to the 
haughty Mecklenburg aristocracy, who were espe- 
cially flattered to find that he could speak perfect 
German. This was told the Grand Duchess Anas- 
tasia, probably with the intention of aimo\ang her. 



Childhood and Early Years 25 

She perfectly understood the motive, and retaliated 
by replying: "Really, I did not know that he could 
speak such a barbarous language. I should have 
imagined that the King and Queen of Denmark 
would not have allowed him to learn it, after the 
manner in which they were treated by Prussia in 
1864." 

It is a remarkable thing that the antipathy of 
Anastasia Michaylowna for everything that was 
German was shared by her youngest child, the Prin- 
cess Cecile, from her earliest years. She was re- 
ported to have said when told of her sister's en- 
gagement : "I shall also do like Drina, and marry 
an enemy of Prussia and of the Kaiser," for which 
remark she was severely reproved by the Grand 
Duke, her father, who feared that the intemperate 
language of his favourite daughter would be mis- 
construed by those who heard it. The poor man 
often found himself, to use the vulgar phrase, "be- 
tween the devil and the deep sea," because, after all, 
he was a German himself, who had been brought up 
in all the old traditions which prevailed at the edu- 
cation of every German Prince, and he found him- 
self perpetually in conflict with his consort, who 
made no secret of the contempt in which she held 



26 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

her subjects and everything that reminded her of 
the "Vaterland" which she made fun of every time 
she had an opportunity. 

Cecile was not a studious child. She loved the 
sun, the flowers, nature, birds and animals, but she 
hated being compelled to study and made no secret 
of being bored and mystified by the books she had 
to read. On the other hand, she had a wonderful 
talent for languages, loved music, and was a painter 
of no mean ability, sketching everything that caught 
her eye or her fancy, and sometimes allowing her 
pencil to draw caricatures which sent those to whom 
she showed them into paroxysms of laughter, but 
which, on the other hand, drew upon her head the 
wrath of the persons whose peculiarities she had 
caught so cleverly. Thus one day when she had re- 
produced the comical walk and general appearance 
of a Mecklenburg lady of high rank, the latter 
complained to the Kaiser, who, in his turn, wrote 
the Grand Duke one of those insulting letters he 
was so fond of sending his various Royal relatives, 
in which he advised Frederick Francis to watch over 
the conduct of his daughters, who might otherwise 
come to imitate their mother's bad example. The 
Grand Duke was not the kind of man to allow such 



Childhood and Early Years 27 

insolence to pass unchallenged, and in his turn he 
requested Wilham II to mind his own business, and 
not give any unsolicited advice. He even went fur- 
ther than that ; he caused the name of the lady who 
had forgotten herself so far as to appeal to the Em- 
peror against the daughter of her own Monarch to 
be struck off the list of those generally invited to 
Court activities at Schwerin, and this action so re- 
joiced Grand Duchess Anastasia that she imme- 
diately communicated the news to her own particu- 
lar friends, with the remark that she hoped the 
Grand Duke would in time so deal with all the other 
unbearable old ladies who had made her own life 
so miserable when she had arrived, a young and in- 
experienced bride, in Mecklenburg. 

There is a curious anecdote concerning the child- 
hood of the Princess Cecile. When her eldest sis- 
ter Alexandrine was confirmed she was herself ten 
years old, far too young to be officially received into 
the Protestant Church. Nevertheless, she implored 
her father to permit her to share the religious in- 
struction given to the elder Princess. When the 
Grand Duke asked her reason for this request she 
replied that she wished him to know that she in- 
tended to remain a good Lutheran all her life. 



28 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

"But I shall know it later on," replied Frederick 
Francis, much amused at the little girl's remark. 

"How can you be sure of it, Papa?" retorted the 
child. "You may be dead then, and I should be so 
unhappy to think you did not know it." 

The Grand Duke started. He did not care to be 
reminded of his delicate state of health, and Cecile's 
words had affected him painfully. But he did not 
accede to her wishes, as it would have been going 
against all established precedents, and would have 
given rise to all kinds of unpleasant remarks. Great 
therefore was his surprise when on the day of the 
confirmation of the Princess Alexandrine, little 
Cecile walked into his room, with a big letter in her 
hand. She sat down beside her father and began 
reading to him her profession of the Protestant 
faith which she had written out herself, adding that 
she wished him to see it, "because it was the one 
she meant to recite at the time of her own confirma- 
tion, no matter when it took place," and she begged 
of him to write down under it that he had seen and 
approved it. Much disturbed in mind, the Grand 
Duke complied with his daughter's request. Fred- 
erick Francis was to die a few months later, in the 
unexpected and mysterious manner I shall pres- 



Childhood and Early Years 29 

ently relate ; therefore, Cecile seems to have had on 
this occasion a premonition of the future, something 
of what is called in Scotland, "double sight," and 
she was later on to give other signs of this remark- 
able faculty, especially after her sad marirage, and 
at the beginning of the great war, when she ac- 
curately predicted some of its principal events, such 
as the defeat of the German armies at the Marne, 
and the conclusion of the armistice with its disas- 
trous consequences for Prussia. It is also related 
that when the Czar Nicholas II came to Berlin the 
last time, on the occasion of the marriage of the 
Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia to Prince 
Ernest of Cumberland, the then Crown Princess of 
Germany remarked to one of her intimate friends: 
"The Emperor of Hussia will come to a sad end. I 
see misfortune written in his face." 



CHAPTER III 

THE DEATH OF THE GRAXD DUKE 
OF MECKLEXBURG 

The last months of the existence of Frederick 
Francis, Grand Duke of ^lecklenburg-Schwerin, 
were sad and painful ones. His health, which had 
always been most indifferent, began to fail fast, 
and at last he could hardly more about, as the least 
exertion tired him so much that it brought on long 
fainting fits, each one of which it was feared might 
prove to be the last. His physicians at about that 
time warned the Grand Duchess that in all prob- 
abihty her husband's days were numbered. She did 
not believe them. She had got so used to seeing 
the Grand Duke ill and suffering that she never 
expected his condition to grow any worse, and on the 
contrary made plans to go with him on a long jour- 
ney around the world, after the Princess Alexan- 
drine's marriage, which was fixed to take place in 
the course of the autumn at Schwerin, where great 
preparations were made in anticipation of it. In 

30 



Death of the Duke of Mecklenburg 31 

the meanwhile she changed nothing in her usual 
mode of life, went about just as she had done before, 
and was seen at the Opera and in the gambling 
rooms at Monte Carlo in company with her brother, 
the Grand Duke Nicholas Michaylowitsch of Rus- 
sia. There were people, however, who had become 
aware of the fact that the state of health of Duke 
Frederick Francis was steadily growing worse, and 
who made scathing remarks concerning the so-called 
levity of conduct of his consort, who was repre- 
sented as a heartless, cold creature, caring for noth- 
ing but her own personal amusements, and leaving 
her suffering husband all alone to the care of 
strangers and servants. They did not know that 
it was the sick man himself who wished his wife to 
leave him, because the day had come when the un- 
fortunate Grand Duke of Mecklenburg had no 
more strength left to control the irrepressible Anas- 
tasia, and, besides, he was suffering acutely from 
remorse for having married this young and beauti- 
ful creature in his deplorable state of health. It 
was the consciousness that he had done her a great 
wrong that made him so indulgent regarding the 
eccentric behaviour of the Grand Duchess, and 
which caused him to shut his eyes on numerous oc- 



32 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

casions when another man would have protested 
against such conduct on the part of his wife which, 
though innocent in itself, was yet of a nature to 
make people talk, and we all know that w^hen once 
society talks, the person it is talking about has no 
chance left to escape condemnation and eventual 
ostracism. 

Nevertheless, life w^ent on at the Villa Wenden 
just as it had done formerly, with a shade more 
gaiety, perhaps, on account of the youthful Prin- 
cess, whom her mother was beginning to take about 
and introduce at different balls and evening parties, 
of w^hich there were so many in Cannes during the 
season. 

Dinners were given by the Grand Duchess, at 
some of which the Grand Duke was not strong 
enough to put in an appearance, whilst at others he 
showed himself as usual an amiable, pleasant and 
courteous host. And on Easter day, Anastasia 
JNIichaylowna arranged a huge reception, to which 
invitations were sent to the elite of the French and 
Foreign residents of Cannes. 

They all came, and at the sound of a military 
orchestra playing joyful waltzes the evening passed 
quickly and pleasantly. The Grand Duke had 



Death of the Duke of Mecklenburg 33 

retired early to his own apartments, and no one 
had attempted to persuade him to remain longer 
with his guests, as it was so evident that he had 
barely sufficient strength left to return to his own 
rooms. After the guests had left, the Grand 
Duchess, who had grown slightly alarmed at her 
husband's strange and utterly worn appearance, 
went to seek him, wishing to ascertain whether he 
had already gone to bed. Great was her surprise not 
to find him there, a surprise which only increased 
when he was nowhere to be found in the whole of the 
house. Anastasia became very frightened, and her- 
self went to explore the garden, fearing that her 
husband had fainted somewhere, as sometimes hap- 
pened when he was overtired. But the garden also 
proved empty and her repeated calls remained un- 
answered. Suddenly she saw one of the servants 
running towards her, and she was told that the body 
of the Grand Duke had just been found on the 
outer side of a high fence which surrounded the 
grounds of the Villa Wenden, and that to all ap- 
pearances he was already dead. 

Anastasia Michaylowna would not believe it. 
She declared that it must be an error, and she sent 
for all the doctors in Cannes. Alas, alas, none of 



34 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

them could do anything. Frederick Francis, Grand 
Duke of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, had really and 
truly passed away. 

How he came to be found on the outer side of 
the fence no one ever knew. Many suppositions 
were made, among others that a robber had been 
discovered by the Duke in the grounds of the man- 
sion, and had thrown him over the wall. But this 
was hardly likely. It was also said that the Grand 
Duke had suddenly become dizzy, and had fallen 
over the wall without any one being at hand to pick 
him up. Also that he had purposely thrown him- 
self into the road from the height of the walls sur- 
rounding the grounds of his residence, and, again, 
it was admitted that the sad affair might have been 
purely accident and nothing else. But the fact re- 
mained that no reasonable explanation could be 
found for this mysterious end. The body bore no 
traces of violence of any kind, save a small bruise 
on the temple where the dead man's head had struck 
a stone, and the official report of this strange end 
merely mentioned the fact that the Grand Duke 
had suddenly succumbed to an attack of heart 
failure. 

Anastasia Michaylowna was a widow, and, 



Death of the Duke of Mecklenburg 35 

strange though it might seem to those who had been 
aware of the sad disappointments of the early years 
of her married life, she sincerely mourned the hus- 
band with whom the world had thought that she 
had had so little in common. The fact was that 
she was far too clever not to realise the protection 
which the presence of the Grand Duke at her side 
afforded her, and she was also too just at heart not 
to be grateful to him for his unbounded trust in 
her, and for the continual courtesy and kindness 
with which he had treated her, in spite of the stren- 
uous efforts of his family to estrange him from her. 
She also knew that henceforward her position would 
be very different from what it had been formerly. 
According to the laws of the Grand Duchy of 
Mecklenburg, the country would have to be admin- 
istered by a Regent during the minority of the new 
Sovereign, and this Regent would have the right to 
compel the widowed Duchess to take up her resi- 
dence in Schwerin or else deprive her of her 
jointure and the custody of her daughters. She 
did not care for the jointure, being very rich on her 
own account, but she did not want her girls to be 
brought up in Germany, according to German 
ideas, and, above everything else, she did not care 



36 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

to give up her French home in order to play second 
fiddle in Schwerin. So it was witli considerable ap- 
prehension that she looked forward to the future 
and to what it might hold in store for her. She 
need not have worried about it, however, for the 
will of the Grand Duke Frederick Francis was en- 
tirely in favour of his wife, to whom he left abso- 
lutely all that he possessed in the way of private 
fortune, and whom he appointed sole guardian of 
their two daughters, with the right to select their 
future place of residence. She was to be allowed 
absolute latitude in regard to their marriage, and 
was not to be subjected to any control in the way 
of their education or maintenance. And though her 
son would have to reside in Mecklenburg, the fa- 
ther added a clause in his will in which he expressed 
the wish that he would spend a few weeks every 
year with his mother, no matter where the latter 
might be living. In short, the poor Grand Duke 
never gave a greater proof of the love and tender- 
ness which he had borne for his wife than in his last 
testament, every line of which breathed perfect 
trust and confidence in Anastasia Michaylowna. 

The people of Schwerin rose up in anger when 
they learned the terms of their deceased Sovereign's 



Death of the Duke of Mecklenburg 37 

will. They had hoped that the widowed Grand 
Duchess would no longer be permitted to indulge 
in what was called the extravagances of her con- 
duct, now that her husband was no longer there to 
countenance them, and in Berlin the Kaiser had 
openly spoken of the possibility of confining her in 
some lonely castle in Germany, where she would be 
compelled to end her days in solitude and obscurity. 
The thought that, on the contrary, she would be 
henceforward in possession of even more independ- 
ence than before her widowhood was very bitter for 
some people, and a flood of calumnies was launched 
against the unfortunate woman, calumnies which 
went so far that rimiours arose accusing her of 
having had a hand in the Grand Duke's mysterious 
death. Useless to say that people were found who 
repeated to Anastasia Michaylowna these sordid 
and wicked stories, and one may easily imagine how 
the tale exasperated her, the more so that she be- 
came aware it had been related to her daughters, 
and that a strong effort had been made to estrange 
them from her. She swore an undying hatred of 
Mecklenburg, and of all "the gossips and old 
frumps," as she called them, of Schwerin, and for 
several years she never set her foot in the country 



38 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

over which she had ruled. In defiance of public 
opinion there she had her eldest daughter's mar- 
riage solemnised at Cannes instead of in Germany, 
and, so to say, compelled the haughty family which 
had been so unkind to her to come to France, in 
order to be present at the marriage of the first child 
of the late Grand Duke Frederick Francis to the 
heir to the Danish Crown. 

She became quite reckless in her expressions of 
dislike and of contempt for everything that was 
German, and for everybody who was bold enough 
to express in her presence his or her sympathy for 
Germany and its rulers. Once, at a large evening 
party in Paris, she publicly spoke of the Kaiser 
as "the greatest hypocrite in Europe." One can 
easily imagine how this definition of his character 
offended William II, and how much he resented 
it; and it is therefore not surprising that later on, 
when the opportunity was granted him, he set him- 
self to humiliate the widowed Grand Duchess in 
every possible way, going so far as to prevent her 
daughter, the Princess Cecile, after the latter's mar- 
riage with the German Crown Prince, to see or to 
communicate with her mother. Anastasia Michay- 
lowna might have created a scandal had she cared 



Death of the Duke of Mecklenburg 39 

to do so, but she was a clever woman, far too wise 
in her generation to do anything that might have 
had a disagreeable influence on the life of the Prin- 
cess Cecile, and the only revenge which she took at 
the ill treatment dealt her by the Kaiser was to 
shrug her shoulders, with the significant remark: 
"I am younger than the Emperor, and can hope to 
survive him; and when he is dead nothing that he 
has ever done will matter." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS 
ALEXANDRINE 

Anastasia Michaylowna had triumphed in a 
certain sense, because her husband's death, instead 
of altering her position for the worse, had, on the 
contrary, secured for her an independence for which 
she had been secretly yearning all her hf e. In spite 
of the predictions which were being made every- 
where that she would marry again as soon as her 
mourning was over, she made up her mind never 
to do so. Her position was assured; she was a 
Grand Duchess of Russia, which in her eyes was 
far more important than being a Dowager Grand 
Duchess of Mecklenburg; she had plenty of money, 
youth, good looks, and intelligence; what more 
could she require? Free from German control she 
could live her life according to her own leanings and 
fancies, and in a certain sense compel her enemies 
to eat humble pie. She knew very well that, ac- 
cording to precedent, she ought to have her daugh- 

40 



Marriage of Princess Alexandrine 41 

ter's marriage solemnised in Schwerin, but it was 
part of her plans to show her disdain for everything 
which pertained to Mecklenburg, so she declared 
to the Regent that the Princess Alexandrine would 
be married from her own house, and that she did 
not consider the castle of Schwerin as belonging to 
her in any way whatsoever. She insisted, more- 
over, on her son coming to France for the ceremony, 
and on the Regent, Duke John Albert of Meck- 
lenburg, accompanying him. She compelled the 
ministers, whose duty it was to sign the settle- 
ments of the young Princess, to make the long 
journey to Cannes, and when they arrived, she re- 
ceived them as ungraciously as possible, and though 
she made sumptuous presents of jewels, laces and 
furs to the future bride, she forced Mecklenburg 
to pay for her trousseau, much to the indignation 
of everybody there, as people had hoped she would 
do it out of her own ample means. In short, she 
showed herself as disagreeable as possible, and car- 
ried things so far that she sent back some of the 
diamonds which were part of the Princess's dowry, 
saying that they were not handsome enough, and 
insisted on their being exchanged for stones of con- 
siderably more value. 



42 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

And what added further to the anger of her 
former subjects, the Grand Duchess, though she 
obliged the Grand Ducal House of Schwerin to pay 
for the trousseau of its fair Princess, ordered the 
trousseau in Paris, so that the good German money 
which was spent upon it all went into the hands of 
French milliners, dressmakers, and tradesmen. One 
may imagine the amount of gossip which her con- 
duct provoked throughout the whole of Germany. 

Nevertheless, the wedding, which was solemnised 
with great magnificence, passed off very well and 
nothing arose to mar its splendour. It was so bril- 
liant a marriage that everybody at last agreed that 
it could not be attended with loo much ceremony. 
After all, the Princess was wedding the heir to the 
Danish CroTvn; she would be one day a Queen, and 
it must be remembered that in those days Royalty 
was not at a discount, as is the case at present. She 
was also entering a family whose connections were 
the best in Europe, was becoming the niece of the 
Queen of England, of the Dowager Empress of 
Russia, and of the King of Greece. Rarely had the 
House of Mecklenburg seen one of its Princesses 
make such a splendid match, and even the exube- 
rant spirits of Anastasia Michaylowna were sub- 




Photo &>' Paul Thompson. 

King Christian and Queen Alexandrine 
OF Denmark 



Marriage of Princess Alexandrine 43 

dued into something like solemnity when she saw 
her daughter put her hand into that of handsome 
Prince Christian of Denmark. Though the mar- 
riage meant for her separation from a dearly-loved 
child, she was reasonable enough not to wish to 
stand between that child and her happiness, and she 
gladljr gave her into the keeping of the amiable and 
gifted young man who had wooed and won her. 
There was also a feeling of triumph mingled with 
her maternal emotions on the wedding day. Her 
Mecklenburg relatives had taken delight in saying 
that, on account of her own careless and giddy con- 
duct, she would never be able to get her daughters 
married, for no German Princes would ever consent 
to take them for their wives — it did not occur to 
them that the Princess Alexandrine and her sister 
could marry outside of Germany. And here was 
her beloved Drina accepted in a family that had 
always been renowned for the strictness of its views 
and the austerity of its principles. It was indeed a 
triumph, and Anastasia Michaylowna would not 
have been human had she not understood it or shown 
herself indifferent to it. After all her troubles, 
destiny was at last beginning to treat her very well 



44 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

indeed, perhaps even better than she had had the 
right to expect. 

After the young bride had taken her leave from 
her mother and family, and had started for her new 
home, hf e at the Villa Wenden did not change very 
much. The Princess Cecile was only twelve years 
old, and could not yet be a companion for her 
mother, who kept her closely confined to her school- 
room. The Grand Duchess, though so careless in 
regard to her own actions, was exceedingly prudent 
in everything which concerned her children, and she 
understood very well that the gay society which 
flocks in winter to the French Riviera is not pre- 
cisely that with which girls should mingle. She 
was an ideal mother, whatever people might have 
to say about her in other respects, and she brought 
up her daughters admirably, provided them with 
excellent principles, and took the greatest trouble 
to give them a brilliant, and at the same time, a 
solid education. Princess Cecile hardly saw any 
one outside her own family circle, and the only peo- 
ple she was allowed to mingle with freely were her 
Russian relatives, of whom there were always a 
large number in Cannes during the season. She 
led a healthy, quiet life, spent mostly in the open 



Marriage of Princess Alexandrine 45 

air, and read a great deal, especially historic books, 
of which she was inordinately fond. Her mother 
taught her needlework, and she became an expert 
needlewoman, sending to various exhibitions won- 
derful pieces of satin, embroidered with lovely 
flowers, that from a distance could easily have been 
taken for real. She played tennis and golf, rode 
and drove in the beautiful neighbourhood of Cannes, 
and was as happy as the day was long. Of mar- 
riage she never thought at all, and even after her 
confirmation she did not appear eager to make her 
debut in society; indeed, she showed herself rather 
apprehensive when at last the Grand Duchess told 
her that she was about to take her to her first ball. 
That first ball! The poor Princess was often to 
think about it, and to remember it with sadness. 
It took place in the beautiful villa of her uncle, the 
Grand Duke Michael of Russia, and was long 
talked of at Cannes as one of the most splendid 
entertainments that had ever been given there. 
Princess Cecile, dressed in willowy white tulle, with 
one row of pearls round her neck, was the cynosure 
of all eyes, and unanimously declared the most 
charming debutante the French Riviera had ever 
seen. Her mother, thanks to her affectation in only 



46 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

calling herself a Russian Grand Duchess, and her 
open dislike of everything that savoured of Ger- 
many and Germanism, was not considered as the 
widow of a German Sovereign by the gay world 
which filled the salons of her brother and sister-in- 
law, the fascinating and amiable Countess Torby; 
so that no one thought of distrusting either her or 
her lovely daughter, as might perhaps have been the 
case had it been remembered that they belonged to 
the nation whose conduct in 1870 was not yet for- 
gotten. Anastasia had been accepted by France as 
a Russian, and was everywhere spoken of as a Rus- 
sian, and as a Russian only, and the great popu- 
larity which she had acquired and was enjoying 
had in a certain sense been extended to her children, 
notwithstanding the fact that her son was but sel- 
dom seen in Cannes after his father's death. So 
that when pretty Cecile was presented to society, 
everybody wished her all the good things she was 
entitled to, and hoped she would soon marry a fairy 
Prince with whom she would be happy forever 
after. 

There were many foreigners invited to this ball 
which the Grand Duke Michael gave for his niece's 
debut in the gay world, of which she seemed des- 




Photo by Paul Thompson. 

Grand Duke Michael Nicholayewitsch and His Wife 



Marriage of Princess Alexandrine 47 

tined to become one of the fairest ornaments in the 
course of time. Among them was a shy young man, 
who was hiding his personahty under the veil of an 
incognito, and who, to the few who were aware of 
it, was no less a personage than the heir to the Ger- 
man Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, Fred- 
erick William, the eldest son of the Kaiser and of 
his consort, the Empress Augusta Victoria. He 
was about twenty-one years of age at that time, 
and had been sent on a journey to Italy and to the 
French Riviera by his father, who wished him to 
have the opportunity of seeing foreign lands, and 
acquiring an experience which he could not pos- 
sibly have obtained in Berlin. There were other 
reasons besides which had made it desirable for him 
to sojourn abroad. His reported infatuation for a 
lovely foreigner had been the cause of much con- 
cern to the Emperor, who at one time had feared 
that he would marry her and renounce his rights of 
succession to the throne — a step which would not 
at all have met with his favour. The Prince had 
therefore been told to go to Italy, and to stay for 
some weeks at Bordighera, whence he had been al- 
lowed to go to Nice and Cannes to see his Russian 
relatives, who were spending the winter in the last 



48 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

mentioned place. He was not to stay for any length 
of time on the French Riviera, but a flying visit 
there was permitted him, and it was hoped that his 
presence on French soil would not give rise to any 
mipleasantness. The Prince, who was accompanied 
by an old friend of his father, General von Ljmcker, 
duly paid his respects to the aged Grand Duke 
Michael, and then called upon his cousins, among 
others upon the Grand Duchess Anastasia, who re- 
ceived him very graciously, but without the least 
idea that a marriage could eventually be arranged 
between him and her dearly-beloved daughter. 

The young man was, of course, invited to the ball 
which was to be given in honour of the coming out 
of the Princess Cecile, and it was there he saw her 
for the first time. Her grace, amiability, and pretty 
face made a deep impression on the Prince, who im- 
mediately forgot all about his previous love affair, 
and upon his return to Bordighera wrote the Kaiser 
that he had met the only woman he wished to marr}% 
and that if he was not allowed to do so he would re- 
main single all his life. The thought that he could 
be refused by the young lady who had thus caught 
his fancy never occurred to him, and yet this is pre- 
cisely what happened. 



CHAPTER V 

A FAIRY PRINCE 

Poor Princess Cecile ! In early childhood her old 
English nurse had often talked to her about a fairy 
Prince who was one day to appear and carry her 
away to his magnificent castle, where she was to 
live with him in great splendour and entire happi- 
ness. Unfortunately, fairy Princes do not run 
about the world, or, if they do, they are generally 
not members of Royal Houses, but simple com- 
moners who do not care for Princesses, and rather 
look upon them with distrust. The charming little 
daughter of the Grand Duchess Anastasia was 
fated to realise this fact, because, though she did 
think that a fairy Prince had discovered her, she 
was not to see him come and claim her hand, but 
on the contrary was to be given away to a being 
with whom she was to find existence worse than a 
nightmare, and at whose hands she was to experi- 
ence brutalities such as women in her class are sel- 
dom, if ever, subjected to. The handsome young 

49 



50 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

man who had been so attracted by her loveliness 
soon wearied of her, and then ill treated her, and 
finally she had to claim the protection of the law 
to free herself from him; but this is anticipating 
the future, so I had better go on with my story. | 

The Crown Prince did not wait for a reply from 
his father before trying to win the heart of the 
Princess Cecile. For one thing he did not think 
for one moment that the Emperor could raise any 
objection to his matrimonial plans, considering the 
irreproachable birth of the girl who had caught his 
fancy, and her sympathetic personality. He there- 
fore imagined that it would be sufficient for him to 
ask her to marry him, to be accepted with enthu- 
siasm. Great was his surprise, therefore, to find 
that such was not at all the case. Cecile replied 
when he proposed to her that she did not wish to 
marry so young, and that, besides, she had no voice 
in the matter, so he had therefore better talk with 
the Grand Duchess. Frederick William was in- 
tensely mortified, but nevertheless was compelled 
to follow this advice, and accordingly sought the 
presence of Anastasia Michaylowna, and told her 
that he had fallen in love with her daughter and 
meant to make her his wife. 






A Fairy Prince 51 

Anastasia Michaylowna was extremely surprised, 
but her anger exceeded her astonishment. She 
knew very well that personally she was intensely 
distasteful to the Kaiser, therefore he would most 
assuredly object to the marriage, and it hurt her 
pride to think that the Princess Cecile might not 
be considered good enough to wear, some day, the 
united crowns of Germany and Prussia. Besides, 
she had not heard anything good concerning this 
unexpected suitor who had suddenly appeared on 
the horizon of the life of her child, whom she 
thought far too young to marry. On the other 
hand, it was a dazzHng prospect from a worldly 
point of view which opened itself before the Prin- 
cess, and she did not quite know whether or not 
she had the right to discourage the young man who 
(she was but too well aware) was at that moment 
the greatest prize in the matrimonial market of Eu- 
rope, She therefore replied with some banal ac- 
knowledgment of the honour conferred upon her 
and her family, but declared at the same time that 
she could not by any means authorise the Prince to 
pay his addresses to Cecile until he had secured the 
consent of his parents, and she allowed him to un- 
derstand that this would not be, perhaps, as easy 



52 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

as he imagined. The young man would not listen. 
He was in love, or imagined that he was, and he 
was not used to being thwarted. When he left the 
Grand Duchess he immediately sought the Prin- 
cess Cecile and once more renewed his entreaties 
to her to accept him at once, without waiting for 
the decision of the Kaiser. But the girl was not 
going to allow herself to be persuaded into taking 
a step which was far from appealing to her heart 
or fancy, so she deliberately refused the offer of 
the Crown Prince, simply telling him that she did 
not know him well enough to marry him and ad- 
vising him not to think about her any more. Had 
she wished to add to Frederick William's infatu- 
ation for her she could not have acted more cleverly. 
Excited by her refusal he became quite angry, and 
at last swore that come what may he meant to win 
her whether she liked it or not. The next day he 
left for Berlin, but on his way there stopped for 
a few hours in Schwerin and laid his intentions be- 
fore the Regent, asking the latter to interfere on 
his behalf with the Dowager Grand Duchess of 
Mecklenburg and to secure her consent to his mar- 
riage with her daughter. 

It goes without saying that the Regent was more 



A Fairy Prince 53 

than pleasantly surprised by this unexpected an- 
nouncement. The idea of his niece becoming in 
time a German Empress could not but flatter him, 
and he replied that he would do all in his power 
to further the cause of the Prince. He advised 
him, however, to speak to the Kaiser before resum- 
ing his courtship of the Princess Cecile, feeling, 
perhaps, uneasy in his mind as to the attitude of 
William II in regard to this marriage, against 
which, he knew but too well, objections might be 
raised, owing to the unpopularity of the mother of 
the bride-elect. 

In the meanwhile, whilst Frederick Wilham was 
trying to secure for himself this bride, Cecile her- 
self had quite forgotten about him and had resumed 
her former life in Cannes, riding, driving, playing 
tennis, and occasionally dancing at some small 
party. It was at one of these dances that she met a 
man who was to make a lasting impression upon her 
youthful mind, and whom she was never to forget, 
though she was to see him again only after long 
years, and under the most dramatic circumstances. 

He was an American who had come to Cannes 
for the winter season, attracted by the vicinity of 
Monte Carlo, where he was reported to have been 



54 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

seen playing for large stakes. He was a friend of 
some English people with whom the Grand Duchess 
Ana stasia was very intimate, and he had been duly 
presented to her and to the Princess Cecile, with 
whom he had danced several times. The girl had 
attracted him, and when he heard ( for people hear 
everything in places like Cannes, where gossip is 
flourishing) that the Crown Prince of Germany 
had fallen in love with her, he had felt a queer sen- 
sation in the region of his own heart, and had caught 
himself regretting that he could not step in and 
snatch this prize from her detestable suitor. He 
knew something of the life and character of Fred- 
erick William, and he thought that he could fore-' 
see what kind of fate awaited the sweet Princess 
who, he feared, would be given up without a strug- 
gle, probably, indeed, with alacrity and joy, into 
the keeping of the selfish youth who had never been 
known to show kindness to any creature on earth, 
whether dumb or human. 

One evening when he had danced a quadrille with 
Cecile, she asked him to lead her to the dining- 
room, where she wished to get something cold to 
drink. She said that she was tired, and when she 
had sipped the lemonade which he brought her, she 



A Fairy Prince 55 

expressed the desire to go into the conservatory 
which opened out of the ballroom, and to sit there 
for a few minutes. He obeyed her, and after hav- 
ing seen her settled in an armchair, he stood before 
her, contemplating her with eyes which must have 
expressed more emotion than he thought, because 
she suddenly asked him why he looked at her with 
such a strange anxiety. 

"I don't think that I ought to tell you why, 
Princess," replied the young man, "and yet I will 
do so; I was looking at you, and thinking what 
would be your future, and whether you would not 
be sacrificed for state reasons, and induced to marry 
a man utterly unworthy of you." 

"You mean the German Crown Prince," asked 
Cecile. 

"Yes, I mean the German Crown Prince," an- 
swered her companion. "Believe me. Princess, 
there can be no happiness for you in a marriage 
with him." 

"But there is no question of such a marriage," 
she said hastily. "I assure you that there is no 
question of it. I am far too young and, be- 
sides . . ." 

"Besides," he asked with anxiety. 



56 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

"Besides, I do not love him, and I do not think 
that I can marry a man I do not love." 

"But you may get to love him in time," insisted 
the American. "Girls can do a great deal under 
the pressure of their families, and it must be ac- 
knowledged that he is an attractive young man. 
He might in time succeed in winning your heart, 
but beware, beware of him, Princess. Your life 
with him would be one long misery." 

"And yet I suppose that I shall have to marry 
some day," wearily said Cecile. 

"I suppose so," repeated the young man in a dry 
tone of voice, "and the misfortune of women in 
your position, Princess, is that they can neither fol- 
low the instincts of their own hearts nor allow men 
other than their equals in rank to pay their ad- 
dresses to them. You live in an atmosphere of 
prejudice against which it is next to impossible to 
fight. But I would warn you not to rush head- 
long into a marriage which may mean the misfor- 
tune of your whole existence. Forgive me for hav- 
ing thus spoken to you. I shall not do it again." 
He took her hand and, raising it to his lips, kissed 
it with respect and reverence. 

"Let me lead you back to the ballroom," he 



A Fairy Prince 57 

said. "It is not wise that we should be seen talk- 
ing here too long. Besides, I am leaving Cannes 
to-morrow and must start early. Once more for- 
give me." 

"Are you really going away?" asked the Prin- 
cess. "Why so soon? I thought you were going to 
stay in Cannes for another month or so." 

"There are such things as letters that call you 
home unexpectedly," he replied, and there was a 
ring of bitterness in his voice. "Men are not al- 
ways strong enough to resist temptation. I must 
now say good-bye to you. Princess. May I hope 
that you will remember me sometimes, and also 
that in case you should ever want a friend, you will 
not hesitate to call upon me? This address will 
always find me," and he sUpped a small piece of 
paper into her hand. Then, turning upon his heels, 
he was gone before she could say one word in reply 
to his farewell. 



CHAPTER VI 

WILLIAM, CROWN PRINCE OF 
GERMANY 

The young man who had so quickly fallen in love 
with pretty Princess Cecile of Mecklenburg was 
up to that time practically unknown. All that the 
general public had heard about him was that he 
had been educated extremely strictly and in an en- 
tirely military manner, also that he had never been 
a favourite with his father, who much preferred his 
second son, Prince Eitel Fritz. The Empress, on 
the other hand, had always been partial to this eld- 
est boy of hers, and had continually stood between 
him and the Kaiser, whenever friction had oc- 
curred. The Crow^n Prince had had a tutor whom 
he had always disliked, and a few companions of 
his own age, with whom he had never been able to 
get on. He was supposed to be shy and timid, and 
yet those who knew him well declared that his char- 
acter was a brutal one which might easily develop 
into violence should the opportunity present itself. 

58 



William, Crown Prince of Germany 59 

Very secretive on some occasions and extremely ex- 
uberant on others, he presented a curious mixture 
of his father's versatiHty and his mother's reticence. 
In society he was pleasant and amiable when he 
liked, and disagreeable and sarcastic when it suited 
his purposes. For women he had been partial 
ever since his school days, and, though he was but 
twenty-one when he met for the first time the young 
girl who was to become his wife, he had already 
had several love affairs. Inordinately ambitious 
and of an extraordinary vanity, he did not admit 
that he could be thwarted in anything he wished to 
do, and the only being of whom he stood in awe was 
the Emperor, who had treated him since his birth 
with great coldness and severity. At the same time 
he understood perfectly well his father's character, 
and knew better than any other member of the 
HohenzoUem family how to handle him whenever 
he wished to get anything out of him. When he 
returned from Cannes to Berlin, therefore, he did 
not let the grass grow under his feet, but sought 
the Kaiser immediately and informed him that he 
had at last made up his mind to carry out his fa- 
ther's wishes and to marry a woman who was his 
equal in birth and rank. 



6o The Disillusions of a Crown Princess i 

At first William II was quite gratified by the 
announcement. He had always been afraid that his 
heir would become entangled in some intrigue which 
would prevent him from fulfilling that part of the 
programme which was traditional in the Hohen- 
zoUern family, i. e., that a future Sovereign should 
bring home as early as possible a suitable bride. 
He expressed his satisfaction, and began suggest- 
ing to him the names of the various Princesses on 
whom his choice might fall. His surprise was great 
when Frederick William rephed that he had al- 
ready met the one he wished to wed, namely, the 
Duchess Cecile of Mecklenburg. 

The Kaiser was quite stupefied. The thought of 
such an alliance had never entered his mind; not 
that he did not deem it suitable in every way, but 
because he so much disliked the Grand Duchess 
Anastasia that the thought of seeing her daughter 
become a member of his family circle was distinctly 
disagreeable to him. He had always avoided the 
Grand Duchess whenever possible. He hated her 
character and considered her a dangerous person 
on account of the levity of her conduct and her 
Russian proclivities. If her daughter should be- 
come the Crown Princess of Prussia he would be 



William, Crown Prince of Germany 6l 

compelled to receive her in his house and to treat 
her with respect and consideration. This was as 
unpleasant as possible, and he told his heir that for 
many reasons, chief of which was the youth of the 
Princess, he would not give his consent to such a 
marriage, at least not for the present. 

But to his astonishment the Crown Prince for 
once showed resistance to his father's commands 
and declared that he would never marry if not al- 
lowed to take for his wife the young Princess who 
had attracted him so much. And he added that he 
had already mentioned his intentions on the subject 
to the Regent of Mecklenburg and that therefore 
the latter would take it as a personal slight and 
offence if the Emperor did not endorse the decision 
of his son and heir. 

The Kaiser was furious. He had been put in a 
false position and he knew it. Then he bethought 
himself that with the known fickleness of the Crown 
Prince, it was just possible that the latter might 
tire of his intended wife before the day fixed for 
their wedding, provided that day was put off as 
long as possible. He also hoped that with the help 
of a little diplomacy he might induce the widowed 
Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg to refuse her con- 



62 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

sent to her daughter's nuptials. So he adopted 
what the French call "bonne mine a mauvais jeu" 
and replied that though for reasons of his own the 
idea of such a marriage was distasteful to him, yet 
he could not refuse his consent to it ; that there were 
certain conditions, however, connected with the per- 
mission he was prepared to grant, one of which con- 
sisted in the delaying of the wedding ceremony for 
another year, during which time the young people 
would have opportunity to get better acquainted 
and know whether they were really suited to one 
another. The Crown Prince accepted these condi- 
tions and further surprised his father by telling him 
that though he had made up his mind to marry the 
Princess Cecile, he was not at all sure whether she 
would have him. 

This made William II very angry. The idea 
that a young chit of a girl whose position in the 
world was far from being securely established 
(thanks to the strange conduct of her mother) could 
look askance at the prospect of one day becoming 
German Empress and Queen of Prussia seemed to 
him to be absolutely preposterous. He therefore 
told his son that he must have acted like the fool 
he had always held him to be if he had not sue- 



William, Crown Prince of Germany 63 

ceeded in winning Cecile's heart, and that the only- 
advice which he could give to him was to try to 
see her again and to settle immediately the ques- 
tion as to whether she was really such a little idiot 
as not to jump at the chance which was being of- 
fered her — a chance which she had had no right to 
expect would ever fall to her lot. 

The Crown Prince did not need to be told to re- 
turn to Cannes, and he made up his mind to start 
for the Riviera within the next few days. But, to 
his mortification, he read in the papers the very next 
morning that the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin had been ordered by her doctors to go to 
St. Moritz for the benefit of her health, and that 
she and her daughter had left Cannes with the in- 
tention of spending the summer months (it was al- 
ready April ) in travelling through Switzerland and 
Italy. 

Frederick William started in pursuit of the two 
ladies and joined them at Vevey on the shores of 
Lake Geneva. There he began in earnest to 
lay siege to the affections of pretty Cecile. He 
could be charming when he liked, and for once he 
meant to show himself in his best colours. The in- 
difference of the girl who had appealed so much to 



64 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

his imagination only gave him a new stimulus in 
his undertaking to make her as much in love with 
him as he was with her, and he pushed things so far 
that at last the Grand Duchess Anastasia began to 
believe he was in earnest and to consider whether 
she would do the right thing if she refused this 
chance of a splendid establishment for her daugh- 
ter. It was true that all she had heard concerning 
this suitor for the latter's hand had been anything 
but favourable. But then every young man must 
sow his wild oats, and, after all, the Prince might 
reform if blessed with a good and affectionate wife. 
The Princess herself became also interested in 
Frederick William. He used to send her flowers 
every day, mostly wild ones such as she liked, which 
he declared to her he had picked himself in the 
mountains whilst she was still asleep in the early 
morning, and on one special occasion he rode as 
far as Geneva from Vevey to bring her some par- 
ticular book she had told him she had wished to read, 
but had not been able to find in the local shop. 
He carried her shawls and wraps, together with 
those of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and fol- 
lowed the two ladies like a submissive little dog 
wherever they went. And then he tried to interest 



William, Crown Prince of Germany 65 

Cecile in his existence and mode of life, explained 
to her different things concerning his position in 
Berlin and his relations with the Kaiser, and ad- 
mitted that though he had often shown himself im- 
prudent, it had been more out of idleness than any- 
thing else. What he required was a home of his 
own, with a beautiful and accomplished wife to en- 
liven it. The Royal Palace of BerHn was not a 
home but a prison, out of which he would give any- 
thing to escape. 

It was impossible for poor little inexperienced 
Cecile not to feel flattered by these confidences. It 
is true that sometimes misgivings used to arise 
in her mind, and the remembrance of the warn- 
ing of her American friend haunted her now and 
then. But the people who surrounded her said 
it would be wicked and almost like flying in 
the face of Providence to refuse the chance of oc- 
cupying the high position which was offered her. 
Her uncle, the Grand Duke Nicholas Michay- 
lowitsch, her mother's favourite brother, who was 
considered the clever man of the Romanoff family, 
came to spend a few days in Vevey, and he also ad- 
vised her to accept the offer of the Crown Prince, 
adding that as a future Empress she would be en- 



66 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

abled to do a great deal of good and would also 
constitute a link between the Russian and the Ger- 
man dynasties. Her grandfather, the aged Grand 
Duke Michael, also wrote to her saying that she 
would commit an unpardonable mistake if she al- 
lowed prejudices to interfere between her and her 
chances of a magnificent marriage. Everything 
and everybody seemed to conspire against her. 
And, what was most important of all, she began 
herself to be attracted to Frederick William. Her 
vanity was flattered, and at seventeen one must be 
forgiven for having vanity. She began to notice all 
that the Prince did; whenever he absented himself 
for a day or two from Vevey she missed him, and 
when he returned owned to him that she had done 
so. In short, this courtship, or idyll, call it what 
you like, went on as other romances of the same 
kind go on, until the day when at last the Crown 
Prince put the direct question to Cecile — ^whether 
she would consent to become his wife, adding what 
he had already told his father, that if she refused 
him he would never marry another woman. The 
girl was won; and perhaps more easily than she 
ever thought possible. So a few days later the offi- 
cial newspapers in Berlin, as well as in Schwerin, 




hotograph, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholayewitsch of Russia 
(Uncle of the Ex-Crown Princess) 



William, Crown Prince of Germany 67 

announced that His Imperial Highness the Crown 
Prince of Germany and Prussia was betrothed with 
the permission of His Majesty the Emperor to Her 
Highness the Duchess Cecile of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin. . . . 

Weeks later the paper containing this announce- 
ment fell into the hands of a young man sitting on 
the verandah of a house on the shores of the Gulf 
of Mexico. He read it over three or four times, 
then flung the sheet upon the floor with a gesture 
of impatience. "Bah, why do I care?" he muttered 
to himself. "She will be like the rest of them, and 
yet, and yet ... I thought that with her it would 
have been different!" 



CHAPTER VII 

AT FLORENCE 

The Grand Duchess Anastasia Michaylowna 
was a very clever woman. When she had become 
reconciled to the idea of her daughter's marriage 
she made up her mind to do everything that lay in 
her power to hasten the event, and thus to thwart 
the secret desires of the Kaiser to drag matters as 
long as possible in the hope that the Crown Prince 
would grow tired of his future wife. The Grand 
Duchess did not mean to give him this chance; she 
played her cards admirably, ignoring the slights 
which from the first day of Princess Cecile's en- 
gagement were dealt her, and smiling sweetly at 
the many insulting messages she received. William 
II, when he found out that the hated marriage was 
about to become an accomplished fact, invited the 
Regent of Mecklenburg to pay him a visit in Ber- 
lin and there discussed with him the future of his 
son and intended daughter-in-law, and he informed 
the poor Regent that he expected him to acquaint 

68 



At Florence 69 

the Dowager Grand Duchess with the fact that he 
wished her to give up the idea of ever seeing the 
Princess Cecile otherwise than quite formally after 
the wedding. She would be allowed, of course, to 
assist at the ceremony, but would have to leave 
Berlin on the day following, and would be per- 
mitted to return to the German capital only on one 
single occasion, that of the christening of her first 
grandchild. The Emperor also expressed the wish 
that the Princess Cecile might be given an oppor- 
tunity to see her fiance somewhere without the 
presence of her mother. The best thing, he said, 
would be for her to come to Potsdam and remain 
there until the day of her marriage, under the pro- 
tection of the Kaiserin, who would see that she was 
trained for the exigencies of her future position as 
the consort of the Crown Prince of Germany. 

The Regent was quite aghast. He had always 
stood in awe of his brilhant sister-in-law, the charm- 
ing but difficult-to-deal-with Anastasia; so he re- 
plied that though he understood the Kaiser's mo- 
tives, he certainly would not take upon himself to 
suggest to the Grand Duchess any such proceed- 
ing. But it seems that the latter somehow got an 
inkling of the affair, because she wrote to William 



70 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

II that though she did not mean to allow her 
daughter to go anywhere without her, yet she 
thought it might be advisable for her to see some- 
thing more of her future husband ; therefore, as her 
own health obliged her to undergo a cure in some 
sanatorium, she proposed that the Princess Cecile 
should repair to Florence, under the chaperonship 
of a Mecklenburg lady-in-waiting, and remain 
there for a few weeks, during which the Crown 
Prince could pay her a visit. As for sending her 
to Potsdam, she would not think of letting her 
make a visit of such importance without accom- 
panying her, and therefore she begged the Em- 
press to consent to its postponement until she was 
completely recovered, when she would consider it a 
pleasant and sacred duty to bring her child to Ger- 
many, and present her to her future mother-in-law. 
This piece of diplomacy produced the desired ef- 
fect. The Kaiserin replied that of course she would 
not dream of asking the Grand Duchess to forego 
her cure, however much she might desire to wel- 
come her at Potsdam, and that she entirely agreed 
with the suggestion of letting the engaged pair meet 
in Italy and enjoy there a few weeks' vacation. The 
Crown Prince was then sent to Florence, where he 



At Florence 71 

found the Princess Cecile already settled in a com- 
fortable suite of rooms at the Hotel de la Grande 
Bretagne on the Lung Arno, and he himself took 
up his quarters at the Hotel de la Ville, in a street 
near-by. 

The days which followed were perhaps the hap- 
piest in the whole life of the young girl whose story 
I am relating. The Crown Prince showed himself 
really a fairy Prince, loaded her with magnificent 
presents, and was the attentive and submissive lover 
in every respect. The engaged pair used to take 
long drives and rides in the beautiful neighbour- 
hood of Florence, and made excursions to the dif- 
ferent places of interest in the vicinity of the his- 
toric city. Frederick William exerted himself to 
make a favourable impression on his beautiful 
fiancee, and tried to paint in a rosy light the 
existence which she was so soon to enter upon. 
They made many plans together, and decided that 
they would live entirely for one another, and try to 
keep as much as possible aloof from the many in- 
trigues of the Imperial Court. But when the Prin- 
cess expressed her intention of spending part of the 
year with her mother in Cannes, the Prince ob- 
jected, and told her that much as he would have 



72 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

liked to grant her request, he feared that the Kaiser 
would refuse it, because it was de rigueur, since the 
war of 1870, for the Prussian Royal family to make 
no lengthy stay in France. This was the first 
shadow to cross the bright heaven of Cecile's bhss. 
The next one was still darker and arose on the 
following occasion: 

The lovers had gone on an excursion to Fiesole. 
It was a beautiful spring day and they sat on the 
steps of the old church of Fiesole, looking at the 
splendid landscape stretched out before their eyes, 
with the spires of the many churches and domes of 
Florence ghstening in the sun in the distance. A 
little mongrel dog came crawhng towards the 
Princess Cecile, evidently attracted by her winning 
countenance and manners. She bent down to caress 
it, when the Prince, furious at seeing her touch 
the dirty animal, gave him a kick which sent him 
reehng ten or twelve paces off, whining pitifully. 

**How could you? How could you do such a 
brutal thing?" exclaimed Cecile. "What has the 
poor little beast done to you?" 

She ran and caught the dog up in her arms and 
began to pet and console it as best she -could. 

"Drop the m.ongrel. Drop him instantly," 



At Florence 73 

called the Crown Prince. "I won't have you touch 
every filthy animal that comes up to you. Drop 
him, I tell you!" And he was about to snatch the 
dog from the Princess's arms, w^hen the animal, evi- 
dently feeling himself protected, snarled furiously 
at his aggressor, 

"I shall do nothing of the kind," cried Cecile, 
"and, what is more, I am going to buy him, if I 
can find his owner, and to take him home with me." 

"I will never allow you to do so," cried the 
Prince, white with rage. 

"You have not the right to forbid me anything 
yet," replied his fiancee, furious in her turn. And 
she walked away, leaving him standing on the steps 
of the old church, with the dog still nestling in her 
arms. On her way to the carriage, which was await- 
ing her and the Prince, she met an old peasant who, 
on seeing the dog, exclaimed, "Madre di Dio, here 
is Fido. What has happened to him?" 

"Nothing has happened," said Cecile. "He has 
only been frightened, but he is a nice and dear httle 
dog. Won't you sell him to me?" and taking out 
ber purse she emptied its contents into the hand 
of the old woman who, only toe glad of such a piece 
of unexpected good luck, began profusely blessing 



74 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

the Princess with all the exuberance of language 
common to the Italians. 

The Crown Prince could not speak Italian, which 
Cecile knew quite well, and consequently did not 
understand the conversation. He remained sulk- 
ing where his fiancee had left him, and did not 
make the slightest effort to join her. She seemed 
to enjoy his discomfiture, merely remarking: 

''I know that you are fond of walking; perhaps 
you would prefer returning to Florence alone. I 
shall therefore take the carriage and leave you 
here." And coolly taking her seat in the victoria, 
which had been standing near by with the lady-in- 
waiting seated in it, and with the dog on her knees, 
she had herself driven back to the Hotel de la 
Grande Bretagne. This scene led almost to the 
rupture of the engagement of the Princess with the 
Crown Prince. It took a long time for Frederick 
William to forget how he had been thwarted, and 
for a few hours he hated the girl who had publicly 
humiliated and defied him. He did not come near 
her that day, but wrote her a note saying that he 
supposed she did not wish to see him again, but 
that nevertheless he would hold himself at her dis- 
posal in case she desired to talk things over with 



At Florence 75 

him and discuss the disagreeable incident which had 
taken place at Fiesole. By that time Cecile's anger 
had cooled down and she had begun to feel fright- 
ened at the consequences ^ this quarrel, the first 
one she had had with the Prince, so she replied 
quite graciously that she felt sorry for her impa- 
tience, but that she could not bear to see an animal 
ill-treated, and ended her letter with the request 
that her fiance would come to see her as soon as 
possible, so as to make it up, as she desired a recon- 
ciliation as much as he did. Of course he appeared, 
and of course the young people made it up. But 
this incident, insignificant as it was, was to rankle 
in the heart of the girl who for the first time in her 
life had been brought face to face with the brutality 
of a man incapable of restraining himself. Again 
she remembered the warning of her American 
friend, and once more misgivings as to whether she 
had been wise in accepting the offer of marriage of 
the future German Emperor crossed her mind. It 
was however too late for her to withdraw without an 
open scandal, and so the subject was not reopened. 
The Crown Prince brought her a lovely bracelet 
the next morning, and they sealed their reconcilia- 
tion with a kiss. But (and this was characteristic 



76 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

of Cecile) the unfortunate dog that had been the 
cause of this storm in a tea-cup remained with the 
Princess, who, when she married, brought him with 
her to BerHn, much to the disgust of the Crown 
Prince. However, he did not Hke to cross her 
again on the subject, and left her in undisturbed 
possession of the animal that had nearly brought 
about the rupture of their engagement. 

This incident cast a shadow on the last days of 
the Princess Cecile's sojourn at Florence, and 
somehow the old affectionate and mutually admir- 
ing relations which had existed between her and 
the Crown Prince underwent a change. Two strong 
characters had crossed swords, and had learned that 
they might do it many more times in the future 
which awaited them, and which they had imagined 
would be for them a perpetual holiday. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MARRIAGE 

Of course the Grand Duchess Anastasia was 
very much distressed when she heard the story of 
her daughter's first quarrel with the Crown Prince. 
She would have liked very much to hurry the mar- 
riage, but the Kaiser had settled it was to take place 
in the course of the following June, so she had 
still eleven months to wait, during which many 
thing '^, could occur which she would not care in the 
least to have happen. But she was a wise woman 
and she kept her counsel, only making it a point to 
prevent the Princess seeing too much of her future 
husband until the day when she should be given up 
to his care. She invented different pretexts in or- 
der to accomplish this, among others the excuse of 
having to remain a long time in Paris for the pur- 
chase of the inevitable trousseau which she intended 
should be a most elaborate affair, far handsomer 
than that of the Crown Princess of Denmark. In- 
deed, apart from the money which the Grand Du- 

77 



78 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

■K 

cal House of Mecklenburg furnished for the pur- 
pose, Anastasia spent a large sum out of her private 
means to buy for Cecile the most wonderful gowns 
and lingerie a Royal Princess had ever seen. But 
this question of the trousseau of the future Crown 
Princess of Germany gave rise to much heartburn- 
ing, and brought about terrible discussions between 
her mother and her prospective parents-in-law. The 
Kaiser wished it to be made in Berlin, but the 
Grand Duchess absolutely refused to order it in 
Germany, remarking that she was free to spend 
her own money where she liked, and that she did 
not mean her child to have hideous German gar- 
ments instead of the lovely Parisian confections 
she meant to give her. Nothing could change her 
decision, and when she was told that what she was 
doing was entirely against Prussian etiquette, she 
retorted that if the Emperor wished the Princess 
to have Berlin clothes, he could buy them for her 
himself, but that she would certainly do nothing 
of the kind. William II had never been generous, 
and he did not care to waste his own resources in 
the purchase of things which his instinct told him 
would not be appreciated by the person to whom 
they were offered. So, to the disgust of the Berlin 




Photo by Paul Thompson. 



Ex-Crown Princess Cecile 



Marriage 79 

tradesmen who had hoped to reap a large benefit 
out of the marriage of the Crown Prince, they were 
not asked to contribute to the trousseau of his bride, 
who arrived in the Prussian capital with a ward- 
robe which eclipsed in elegance and magnificence 
everything that had ever been seen there before. 

One thing in which the Prussian Royal family 
showed itself generous was in the collection of gifts 
which they presented to Cecile. The Kaiserin gave 
her the splendid parure of rubies and diamonds 
which she had received from her own mother-in- 
law, the late Empress Frederick, on the occasion 
of her own marriage, whilst the Kaiser, apart from 
the diamond tiara which etiquette obliges the Sov- 
ereign to give to every HohenzoUern bride, added 
to this present some strings of wonderful pearls, 
and a magnificent diamond and emerald parure. 
The Prince and Princess Frederick Leopold gave 
Cecile a diamond Riviere and pearl earrings, whilst 
the gifts which were sent to her from her Russian 
relatives surpassed in beauty everything that had 
ever been seen in Berlin outside the Prussian Crown 
jewels. As for the Crown Prince, he remembered 
that his bride's favourite colour was blue, and he of- 
fered her some sapphires and turquoises of inestim- 



8o The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

able value. A rare collection of laces and antique 
fans was also a part of her wedding presents, and 
the Grand Duchess Anastasia sacrificed some of 
her own ornaments in favour of her daughter. The 
trousseau itself comprised six dozens of omder- 
clothes of the finest nainsook and batiste, all 
trimmed with real Valenciennes and Mechlin lace, 
innumerable negliges and dainty petticoats and 
matinees, furs of every kind and description, and 
no less than fifty gowns, all made at the leading 
dressmaking establishments of Paris and London. 
It was truly a trousseau worthy of a King's daugh- 
ter, and even those who criticised the Grand Duch- 
ess of Mecklenburg for having ordered it in Paris 
had to acknowledge that nothing more wonderful 
had yet been seen in Berlin. 

The wedding took place on the sixth day of June 
of the year 1905, and two days before it was solem- 
nised the youthful bride made her formal entry into 
Berlin, seated by the side of the Kaiserin in the 
great golden State coach of the Prussian Kings, 
which was only taken out on such occasions. The 
Mayor of the capital greeted her at its gates, and on 
the threshold of the old Castle the Kaiser himself, 
with the Crown Prince, received her solemnly, and 



Marriage 8i 

conducted her to the apartments which had been 
prepared for her and for her mother, which she was 
to occupy until her marriage. A State perform- 
ance at the Opera closed the day, when enthusiastic 
acclamations welcomed the Princess on her first 
public appearance in her new country. She looked 
radiantly beautiful and happy, whilst her fiance 
also seemed in the seventh Heaven of delight, and 
kept following all her movements with eyes which 
showed as plainly and distinctly as possible that he 
was deeply in love with her, and anxiously awaiting 
the day when he would be able at last to call her 
his own for ever. On the wedding day, or rather 
evening, because it was solemnised at six o'clock 
in the afternoon, the Princess Cecile, after having 
put on her bridal dress, was escorted by the ladies 
of her new household to a room in the Castle where 
the Kaiserin awaited her, surrounded by all her 
Court. The diamond crown which is worn by all 
the Princesses of Prussia on their marriage day 
was brought to her, and it was Augusta Victoria 
herself who put it on the head of the bride, where 
it was fastened with large diamond hairpins. It 
was a very handsome crown made out of magnifi- 
cent stones and it suited Cecile perfectly, her tall 



82 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

and slight figure carrying it off with wonderful 
dignity. Her gown was made out of silver cloth, 
all embroidered with orange blossoms and mn'tle, 
also in silver, and the train was six yards in length. 
The front of the skirt was entireh^ di-aped with 
wonderful old Alen^on point, and the same kind 
of lace composed the veil, which fell down her back 
from imder the crown. "^"Mien her toilet was com- 
pleted, the young Princess surprised everybody by 
going up to her mother and kneeling down before 
her to ask her blessing. Anastasia ]VIichaylowna, 
deeply moved, raised her daughter from her knees 
and tenderly kissed her, both feeling perhaps that 
this was the last time they would be allowed to ex- 
change such a long embrace. 

Then Cecile walked out of the room escorted by 
the Kaiserin, who, at the door of the State apart- 
ments, stepped aside to allow the Crown Prince to 
take her place, and it was led by him that the Prin- 
cess made her entry into the ancient chapel of the 
old Castle of Berlin, which had seen so many Royal 
marriages solemnised within its grey walls. 

The etiquette which presides at the weddings of 
the members of the Hohenzollern family is a very 
complicated one. After the rehgious ceremony has 



Marriage 83 

been performed, the bride and bridegroom take 
their place under a dais beside the Emperor and 
Empress, and the invited guests file past them, 
curtseying deeply as they do so. After this part of 
the pageant is over a splendid supper is served at 
which the health of the newly married pair is drunk, 
and then begins what is called the Fackel Tanz. 
Preceded by the principal Court officials, and by 
all the members of the Cabinet, who carry large 
wax torches, the bride and bridegroom march sol- 
emnly round the big ballroom followed by every 
member of the Royal family present, and every 
invited guest of Royal or Imperial rank. When 
there are many guests this part of the ceremony 
lasts sometimes more than an hour. It is pictur- 
esque in the extreme, inasmuch as the bride, after 
and before she makes every turn, curtseys deeply 
to the Emperor as well as to her successive partners, 
the bridegroom doing the same before the Empress 
and every Royal lady he leads in this polonaise (it 
can hardly be called anything else) which gives 
ample opportunity to the invited guests to take a 
careful review of the beautiful costumes and jewels 
which as a rule are only brought to light on occa- 
sions of this kind. 



84 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

This strange dance is followed by something 
which is stranger still, i. e., the giving to the assist- 
ants pieces of sky-blue ribbon with the initials of 
the bride and bridegroom embroidered thereon with 
gold, which are supposed to be part of the bride's 
garter. This is the last act of a ceremony that gen- 
erally lasts from five to six hours; after it is over 
the newly married couple are at last allowed to 
retire to their own apartments. 

The day following the wedding a religious serv- 
ice of thanksgiving takes place in the same chapel 
in which it was celebrated, after which a State Ball 
is given, which brings to a close festivities that are 
more amusing to the guests than to those in whose 
honour they are given. 

The new Crown Princess was to take up her 
residence in Potsdam with her husband, who had 
been recently promoted to a captaincy in the first 
regiment of Foot Guards. At first it was intended 
that they should repair there immediately after the 
marriage ceremony, but Cecile did not wish to leave 
Berlin until after the departure of her mother, 
which had been fixed for the following evening. 
The .Grand Duchess Anastasia had faithfully per- 
formed her part of the tacit bargain she had made, 



Marriage 85 

and she had herself declared that she would leave 
for her villa in Doberan in Mecklenburg as soon 
as she had seen her child settled in her new resi- 
dence. But the Kaiser did not want her to do this, 
and objected to her going to Potsdam, even for a 
few hours' visit. So after many discussions, which 
at one time threatened to assume a most bitter 
character, the Grand Duchess agreed to leave, and 
she bade good-bye to her daughter with a far heav- 
ier heart than she had imagined possible. 

Poor little Cecile clung to her mother and wept 
copious tears when she had to part from her. They 
were both reahsing all that their separation meant 
and implied, and people who were standing near 
them heard the new Crown Princess murmur in 
Anastasia Michaylowna's ear : "Oh, Mama, Mama, 
how could I do it, how could I do it?" The Grand 
Duchess answered only with sobs, and so at last 
they parted, and another existence, very different 
from the one she had led before, began for the 
young wife of Frederick William, Crown Prince 
of Germany and Prussia. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE SURROUNDINGS AND COURT OF 
THE NEW CROWN PRINCESS 

Cecile of Mecklenburg- Schwerin was only 
eighteen years old when she became the bride of 
the heir to the German Imperial Throne. She had 
been brought up in an atmosphere of refinement 
and liberty that was very different from the stiff 
etiquette which prevailed at the Prussian Court. 
Her mother-in-law, the Kaiserin, though an excel- 
lent, kindly and extremely good and indulgent wo- 
man, was so insignificant and so absorbed in her 
housewifely duties that she could hardly become a 
friend for the girl who, after having enjoyed the 
happiness of a singularly pleasant family life, found 
herself transplanted quite suddenly among people 
who held absolutely different theories from those in 
which she had been educated, and who were inclined 
to criticise her, and to try to bring her down to 
their own level. The Crown Prince, as I have al- 
ready related, had been ardently in love with her, 



The New Crown Princess 87 

but his nature was far too coarse to understand that 
a wife could not be treated in the same way as a 
mistress, and he made no allowances for the natural 
shyness of the young girl whom he had married 
against the wishes of his parents, and more from 
a feeling of defiance than from any other motive. 
Cecile suffered cruelly during the first weeks which 
followed upon that wedding day that had passed 
off so triumphantly for her, and curious though 
this may sound, yet it is a fact that at this early 
stage of her existence as the Crown Princess of 
Germany and Prussia, she found only one friend, 
and that was the last person one would have thought 
of — the Kaiser. William II had been conquered by 
the sweetness and the grace of his new daughter-in- 
law, who had won his heart from the very first day 
that he had seen her, so that after having opposed 
her marriage with his son, he grew to care for her 
far more than for any other member of his family, 
and later on was on more than one occasion to take 
her part against the Crown Prince, when the latter 
gave way to those fits of brutality which were to 
cause his wife so much unhappiness. Cecile was a 
clever woman, moreover, and her father-in-law dis- 
covered very soon that he could discuss with her 



88 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

many serious subjects about which it was impossible 
for him to talk to his own wife. She was witty 
also, had a keen sense of humour, and knew how to 
amuse the Emperor and to bring a smile to his lips 
when others failed to do so. But whilst she 
succeeded in winning the heart of William II, she 
also discovered that the fact of her having done 
so exasperated the Crown Prince, who, instead 
of rejoicing that his consort had so quickly made 
herself at home in her new family and had con- 
trived to do away with the prejudices which the 
Kaiser had entertained in regard to her, became 
jealous of her, and reproached her with intriguing 
against him. He had wearied of her almost imme- 
diately after their marriage, and his sneaky, under- 
hand character had seen a danger to himself in the 
popularity which the Princess Cecile was acquiring 
so rapidly. 

He did not ill-treat her (in the usual sense of that 
word) during the first year or two, but he sneered 
at her, neglected her, and whenever she tried to get 
him to give her advice or to come to her help with 
his own experience, he refused to do so, and replied 
by some caustic remark to the effect that since she 
was so very clever she did not require any guidance 



The New Crown Princess 89 

from him. The Crown Prince's nature was not one 
w^hich could submit to the exigencies of married Hf e, 
and it was a matter of perfect indifference to him 
w^hether his wife did or did not like him to absent 
himself for hours, and sometimes for days, from 
home, without telling her where he was going, or 
what he had been doing. He did not care in the 
very least for her feelings, and of course he did not 
notice that the love which the Princess had un- 
doubtedly borne him was fast dying out, and that 
in its place something very akin to hatred was slow- 
ly rising and embittering the whole existence of the 
lovely girl whose destiny he had taken upon himself 
to control. A son was bom to the young couple 
one year after their marriage, and its coming into 
the world revealed to Cecile, more than anything 
that had gone before, the small part which she held 
in her husband's life. The Prince had been invited 
for a few days' shooting by one of his particular 
friends, and though the Princess was already suf- 
fering and ill, he refused to abandon the pleasure 
of his projected excursion, and left Potsdam a few 
hours before his first-bom son made his appearance 
in the world. The Kaiser was also away, on his 
annual trip to the Norwegian Fjords; the Grand 



90 THe Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

Duchess of Mecklenburg had not been allowed to 
come to Berlin and be with her daughter in the 
critical hour of her life, and with the exception of 
the Kaiserin there was no one near Cecile to en- 
courage and soothe her during her trial. She had 
to suffer alone, and alone to brace herself up for 
all the horrors of a future which she knew by that 
time was bound to be very different from what she 
had looked forward to during the months when the 
enamoured Crown Prince had poured vows of eter- 
nal fidelity into her ears. WTien she arose from 
her bed and resumed the daily routine of her for- 
mer existence it was with feelings vastly different 
from those that had ruled her conduct before, be- 
cause she had made up her mind not to allow herself 
to be overpowered by the freaks of an Uiihappy 
destiny, but to try, on the contrary, to get the best 
out of life and the situation in which she found her- 
self. 

The Crown Princess had mth her, as Mistress of 
her Household, a woman of great intelligence and 
considerable heart, Madame Rose von Thiele Wink- 
ler, who had been one of the most popular women 
in Berlin society at the time when she had filled the 
position of lady-in-waiting to the old Princess 



The New Crown Princess 91 

Charles of Prussia. She would certainly have been 
of great help and use to Cecile if the latter had 
only consented to take her into her confidence and 
to treat her as a friend. Unfortunately, the two 
ladies were not sympathetic to each other, and their 
wills seemed to clash on evety occasion, so in- 
stead of trust and friendship, animosity prevailed 
between them. The Crown Princess could not di- 
vest herself of the idea that Frau von Thiele Wink- 
ler was nothing more nor less than a spy, who had 
been ordered to watch over all her actions and 
report upon them to the Kaiser and the Kaiserin, 
and she accordingly treated her with a cold disdain 
which must have painfully affected the lady in ques- 
tion, who nevertheless remained faithful to the 
Crown Princess, and tried hard, though most of 
the time in vain, to win the heart of her young and 
capricious mistress. It is probable that if the 
Princess had only listened to this wise Mentor she 
would have avoided many of the pitfalls into which 
she was to fall in after years, but unfortunately she 
would not look at things or at people impartially 
or reasonably, and in consequence found herself 
completely isolated and almost without one single 



92 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

friend capable of pleading her cause before the 
Kaiser when the hour of her great trial came* 

The indifference displayed by the Crown Prince 
in regard to his wife at the time of the birth of 
their first-born son hardened the heart of Cecile 
and in a certain sense made her reckless. She got 
her doctor to order her to St. Moritz for her health, 
and there contrived to meet her mother, in whom 
she hoped to find the adviser that she was shrewd 
enough to reahse she needed. But alas, alas, 
the Kaiser heard of the meeting and immediately 
telegraphed to his daughter-in-law to return to 
Berlin without delay. The Crown Princess put 
the telegram into the waste paper basket and took 
no heed of it, but for once the Crown Prince sided 
with his father, and to his wife's intense stupefac- 
tion he appeared one morning in St. Moritz to 
fetch her back, as he declared. Stormy scenes took 
place between husband and wife, and for the first 
time Cecile found her husband's hand fall heavily 
upon her shoulder. She screamed so loudly that 
the whole hotel in which they were staying became 
alarmed, and guests as well as servants rushed to- 
wards the apartments occupied by the Royal couple 
to see what was taking place. The Grand Duchess 



The New Crown Princess 93 

Anastasia also hastened to her daughter's room, 
where she found the latter stretched upon the floor 
in an agony of weeping, whilst the Crown Prince, 
sullen and morose, was standing beside her^, appar- 
ently unconscious of her distress. 

The Grand Duchess soon learned the details of 
the scene which had taken place, and in her indigna- 
tion she seized her son-in-law by the shoulders and 
simply put him out of the room ; then she sat down 
and wrote to William II, relating what had taken 
place, and asking him whether he could not protect 
his daughter-in-law against the brutalities of her 
husband. The Kaiser was shocked beyond words 
at this communication. With all his faults he had 
always treated women with respect and considera- 
tion, and it was therefore exceedingly painful for 
him to find that his son had so far forgotten him- 
self as to raise his hand against his consort. The 
Crown Prince was immediately recalled to Berlin, 
whilst the Princess Cecile was authorised to remain 
with her mother in Switzerland. But this inter- 
vention did not lead to much, because she had, after 
all, to return to her own home and to her little boy, 
who during her absence had remained with the 
Kaiserin. When she reached Potsdam she dis- 



94 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

covered that her husband was more embittered 
against her than he had ever been before, and that 
he accused her of having tried to turn the Emperor 
against him by relating facts which he declared 
were not true. It was useless for poor Cecile to 
protest that she had never done so, and that she 
would have preferred to die rather than reveal to 
her father-in-law the brutalities to which she had 
been subjected. The Crown Prince would not ac- 
cept her denials, declaring that he knew exactly 
how much she was to blame for the strained rela- 
tions which already existed between him and 
William II. His rage against the unfortunate 
Princess attained such proportions that he confided 
to all his friends and even to the man in the street 
all the grievances, real or supposed, which he con- 
sidered that he had against his wife, and he seized 
every opportunity to represent her to the general 
public as a selfish woman who cared for nothing 
but her personal comforts and who had married 
him simply out of ambition, and because by doing 
so she was securing for herself in the future the 
great position of Empress of Germany and Queen 
of Prussia. 




*- \ 



Photo by Paul Thompson. 

The Ex-Crown Prince and Ex-Crown Princess 



CHAPTER X 

THE CLOVEN FOOT BEGINS TO SHOW 

The incident which had taken place in St. Moritz 
had, as may be imagined, not improved the rela- 
tions between the Crown Prince and Princess, but 
the latter after having for some weeks, and perhaps 
even months, given way to despair, at last entirely 
changed her point of view. She began, as I have 
already related, to seek outside of her home pleas- 
ures and amusements that might make her forget 
the miseries of her conjugal existence. She went 
out a great deal in society, bought wonderful gowns 
and surrounded herself with a small circle of young 
and rich people, of whom she very soon became the 
idol, and who tried to procure for her every possible 
kind of enjoyment in the way of balls, dinners, 
bridge parties and other entertainments. She was 
very popular, not only in this select circle, but also 
in society in general, and even the people of Berlin 
looked upon her with indulgent and affectionate 
eyes, perhaps because she was the first member of 

95 






96 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

the Imperial family to mix freely with them, and 
to walk alone and unattended in the streets of the 
capital, visit hospitals, schools and various public 
institutions, and also the dwellings of the poor and 
the needy, because, like all the members of the Ro- 
manoff family to which she belonged through her 
mother, she was extremely charitable. But at the 
same time there were other persons, and these were 
far more influential than the particular friends of 
Cecile, who blamed her for the recklessness of her 
conduct and for her extravagance, whilst the vari- 
ous Dowagers who ruled society in Berlin re- 
proached her for ordering all her clothes from Paris, 
and for introducing French fashions into Germany. 
When she appeared for the first time at a court 
ball with a gown which had an unmistakable slit in 
the skirt, there was a terrible outcry everywhere, 
and the Kaiserin was asked to interfere and to tell 
her daughter-in-law that such a costume was not 
permissible at an official festival, which Augusta 
Victoria hastened to do, because she was perhaps 
the one who was the most scandalised by the Crown 
Princess's audacity. But her remarks were not 
taken in good part, because Cecile simply pouted 
her pretty lips, and replied that at twenty one did 



The Cloven Foot Begins to Show 97 

not dress in the same way as people of fifty or 
sixty, and she was upheld in her revolt by her sister- 
in-law, the Princess Victoria Louise, who, being the 
Kaiser's prime favourite, could do pretty much 
what she pleased, and who had also flaunted before 
the Empress's scandalised eyes the most embarrass- 
ing slit in the various gowns she loved so much to 
order. 

But what got Cecile into serious trouble was her 
entire recklessness in regard to money matters. 
Though she had ample means df her own, her 
grandfather, the old Grand Duke Michael of Rus- 
sia, having liberally added to her dowry out of his 
private fortune because of his dehght at her mar- 
riage, she never reckoned what she spent, and her 
different dressmakers' and milliners' bills were al- 
ways growing and growing, so that at last even 
these long-suffering individuals began to get rest- 
ive, and threatened their Imperial customer. Once 
a complaint was sent to the Kaiser, with the result 
that he flew into a passion and severely reprimanded 
his daughter-in-law; nevertheless he paid the out- 
standing account, but with the remark that it would 
be the last time and that if the Princess got into 
trouble again she could get out of it herself. Ce- 



98 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

cile did get into trouble again, but this time it was 
to her mother she appealed, and Anastasia Michay- 
lowna had to pay up, so as to prevent any more dis- 
agreeable consequences. She was an affectionate 
parent, and perhaps at heart she felt guilty for hav- 
ing influenced her daughter to wed the Crown 
Prince in spite of all that she had heard to his detri- 
ment, and to have thought more of the great posi- 
tion such a marriage imphed than of the personal 
happiness of the girl who was contracting it. 

It was not the Crown Princess alone who was ex- 
travagant; her husband also did not stint himself, 
so the couple were continually in financial trouble 
and difficulties, in spite of their considerable income. 
There were days when the superintendent of their 
household had to exert a large amount of tact in 
order to induce the tradesmen who catered for them 
to continue supplying them with needful commod- 
ities and at last he had to beg the Crown Prince 
not to take the large sum which the latter had asked 
him to bring him for his private expenses, because 
he could not hand it over without leaving the house 
exchequer so completely empty that the weekly 
bills of the cook and housekeeper could not be set- 
tled when they fell due. 



The Cloven Foot Begins to Show 99 

This enraged Frederick William, and he forth- 
with sought a friend, the son of a very wealthy 
man, and borrowed from him the money he wanted ; 
but the latter was prudent enough to ask a promis- 
sory note in exchange, which he hastened to cash at 
a bank, and when he was asked to renew it, he re- 
plied that much as he would have liked to do so, he 
could not, because the document had passed out of 
his possession, circumstances having compelled him 
to discount it. When this disclosure was made to 
the Crown Prince there were but three days left 
before this terrible bill should become due. Go to 
the Kaiser? He had not the courage; the Kai- 
serin never had money to spare; banks asked any 
amount of guarantees which he could not have given 
without the matter reaching his father's ears. There 
remained his wife; he accordingly sought Cecile, 
and confessed to her the plight he was in. She also 
did not care for the Emperor to know of the diffi- 
culty in which his heir found himself, and she was 
quite ready to help the latter to the best of her 
ability, but she too had no money, nor did she know 
how to procure any without applying to her mother 
or her grandfather, and there was not sufficient 
time left for her to do this. The Crown Prince 



100 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

then asked her whether she would not consent to 
pawn some of her jewels for a time until he should 
have succeeded in procuring the funds he needed. 
The Princess had a kind heart and other circum- 
stances also influenced her as I have just said and 
induced her to try to do anything in order to pre- 
vent the story of her husband's imprudence becom- 
ing public property. So with many sighs and a few 
tears, she gave up the ruby and diamond parure she 
had received from the Kaiserin as a wedding pres- 
ent and it found its way to a pawnbroker's estab- 
lishment in Vienna, Berlin having been considered 
as far too dangerous a place to risk such a trans- 
action. 

Things sometimes will go wrong in an entirely 
unexpected way. The Emperor wished to make 
his daughter-in-law a present for the coming Christ- 
mas, and he bethought himself that she had not any 
ruby bracelets to match her necklace, earrings and 
tiara. He accordingly asked the head maid of the 
Princess to bring him these ornaments unknown to 
her mistress, so that he might show them to the 
court jeweller, whom he had commissioned to make 
the bracelets he wished to offer her. The maid went 
to the safe (of which she had a duplicate key) where 



The Cloven Foot Begins to Show loi 

Cecile's jewels were kept and to her horror and 
surprise she found that the case which had contained 
the famous rubies was empty. Without saying a 
word to the Crown Princess she raised an alarm, 
and summoned the police, who immediately report- 
ed the matter to the Kaiser. The latter caused a 
searching enquiry to be made, forbidding Cecile's 
being informed of the supposed theft, not wishing 
to cause her needless worry and anxiety on account 
of the delicate condition of health she happened to 
be in at the time. The result of the investigation 
which he ordered was that the jewels on which he 
set such value and which were considered to be 
among the most precious possessions of the Prus- 
sian Royal family were found in a pawnbroker's 
estabUshment in Vienna, where, as was further dis- 
covered, they had been taken by one of the intimate 
friends of the Crown Prince, whom he had asked as 
a personal favour to help him out of his difficulty. 

The man was immediately arrested, with the re- 
sult that the whole sordid story came out, and the 
Emperor was advised that the best thing he could 
do would be to redeem the rubies, and try to hush 
up an incident which certainly reflected no credit 
on those who were connected with it. 



102 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

This, however, was easier said than done. Wil- 
ham II did redeem the ornaments and had them 
taken to the Crown Treasurer with injunctions to 
hand them over in the future to the Crown Princess 
onty when she required to wear them, but not to 
leave them in her possession. Cecile rebelled, and 
asked why she was to be punished when she had 
tried to help her husband and to keep him out of a 
scrape at the price of a very heavy personal sacri- 
fice. But what was her surprise when she was 
thereupon informed that the Crown Prince in or- 
der to avert from his own head the wrath of the 
Kaiser had told the latter that his wife had 
pawned her jewels unknown to him in order to pay 
her dressmakers' bills. 

This was too much even for the patience of Ce- 
cile, and she furiously upbraided the puppet to 
whom she was bound, saying that she would return 
to her mother and would not Hve any longer with 
him. And she started that same evening for 
Schwerin, where she asked her brother to arrange 
a separation between her and the Crown Prince. 

This was of course the last thing that the Grand 
Duke of Mecklenburg wanted to do, and he tried 
his best to smooth matters over, even going the 




Photo by Paul Thompson. 

Ex-Crown Princess Cecile and Sons 



The Cloven Foot Begins to Show 103 

length of offering to pay his sister's debts, provided 
she would return to her duties and to her children. 
He added, what perhaps was more effective than 
anything else, that no matter what might be her 
grievances against the Crown Prince, she would not 
be allowed to take her boys with her if she left him, 
because, being Prussian princes, they would have 
to be brought up in the land of their birth. This 
proved the best argument he could have used, 
for, after many tears and considerable hesitation, 
Cecile was at last induced to return to Berlin, 
whither her brother escorted her, and where he had 
long conversations with the Emperor with the re- 
sult that the latter spoke very kindly to his daugh- 
ter-in-law, saying that he regretted what had hap- 
pened, and that he advised her for the future to 
have more confidence in him, and if she or the 
Crown Prince ever got into trouble again, to come 
to him rather than resort to expedients unworthy 
of persons in her position. And to show that he 
was no longer displeased with her, he himself 
brought her back the jewels which had caused such 
trouble, also the bracelets he had wished to add to 
them, which he offered to her as a token of his for- 
giveness and affection. 



CHAPTER XI 

A YOUNG WIFE'S MISERY 

When the Crown Princess returned to Berlin 
she hoped, and indeed she had been told, that hence- 
forward she would be better treated by her husband 
than she had been before the last scandal of which 
he was the hero. She was a proud Httle thing, and 
she did not care to complain, but at the same time 
she knew herself to be an object of pity to all those 
who were aware of all that she had to bear, and 
almost involuntarily she sought their sympathy and 
tried to win their approval. Of course this was 
easy for her, because no one cared for the Crown 
Prince ; but it did not do her personally any good, 
for there were people who traded upon the con- 
fidences they received from her, and who talked far 
too much about the things she told them. Word of 
this got to the ears of the Prince, and of course he 
resented it ; being absolutely brutal in character, he 
taunted his wife with her indiscretions, and threat- 
ened her in his turn with divorce and separation. 

104 



A Young Wife's Misery 105 

The life of unfortunate little Cecile was getting 
daily more difficult, and she had, besides, to bear 
with her two sisters-in-law, the wives of Prince Eitel 
Fritz and Prince August Wilhelm, who were both 
jealous of her, and who would dearly have liked to 
see her humiliated and forsaken by the Crown 
Prince. They reproached her, among other things, 
for being far too French and Russian in her tastes 
and sympathies, and they took advantage of every 
possible incident, no matter how insignificant, to 
make her unhappy and to make ill-natured remarks 
about her. For instance, the Crown Prince and his 
wife once gave a fancy ball at their palace in Ber- 
lin. It had been settled that all the members of 
the Royal Family present at this festivity were to 
wear old German fancy dresses, copied from fam- 
ily pictures in their possession. Cecile, when she 
was asked what she intended to wear, replied eva- 
sively, but gave her relatives to understand that 
she would appear in the costume of Queen Sophy 
Charlotte of Prussia, one of the most popular per- 
sonages of the Hohenzollern family. Great there- 
fore was the surprise of everybody when on the 
evening in question the Crown Princess made her 
entrance into the ballroom arrayed in a Russian 



io6 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

dress of the fifteenth century, which she had asked 
her cousins to send her from St. Petersburg, and 
when she was asked why she had not kept to her 
original intention of wearing a costume after some 
family picture, she coolly replied that she had also 
Russian relatives, and that she had never promised 
to copy the garments of her German ones. This 
answer was commented upon in anything but fa- 
vourable terms, and, as may easily be imagined, it 
procured for Cecile a few more enemies in addition 
to those which she had already. 

The Crown Prince, who was brutal and impolite 
in his speeches, began after this incident to call her 
"the Russian," and the nickname was taken up at 
once by his brothers, sisters-in-law, and cousins, and 
applied without the least discrimination to the un- 
fortunate Crown Princess upon every occasion 
when she tried to assert herself or to express an 
opinion different from that of the rest of her fam- 
ily. Indeed people seemed to find a particular de- 
light in repeating it, and in accentuating the fact 
that the wife of the heir to the German throne did 
not care for Germany or for Prussia, and regretted 
ever having married into that country. The last 
supposition was perhaps not altogether erroneous, 



A Young Wife's Misery 107 

but it is certain that the Crown Princess never ex- 
pressed it publicly. 

She had given birth to three sons in quick suc- 
cession, but this fact had not endeared her to her 
husband, whose passion for her had quickly van- 
ished and who began once more to indulge in the 
flirting proclivities he had displayed before his mar- 
riage. These were to lead him very far, perhaps 
too far for the peace of mind of his wife, who though 
she did not care for him any more with the passion 
of earlier days, had too much pride not to resent 
bitterly his inconstancies. But she played the game 
in an admirable manner, in accordance with the 
promise which she had given her brother when he 
brought her back from Schwerin; no one heard any 
more complaints from her of the Crown Prince, no 
matter what private lamentations she indulged in 
concerning the other unpleasantnesses of her daily 
existence. She tried to close her eyes and not to 
notice what went on around her, and it was only 
when she was alone with her husband that she oc- 
casionally allowed the bitter contempt which she 
felt for him to break out and then she made some 
exceedingly sarcastic remark which cut him to the 



io8 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

quick, and to which he generally returned an in- 
sulting reply. 

There was at that time in Berlin a young couple 
belonging to one of the most aristocratic famihes 
of Westphaha, who had recently settled in the cap- 
ital. The lady was extremely pretty, but rather 
flighty and fond of admiration. She attracted the 
Crown Prince, who began paying her frequent vis- 
its and loading her with attentions which were so 
evident that they attracted considerable notice. The 
husband, though not in the least jealous, still did 
not care for his wife to be talked about, especially 
in connection with an individual like the future 
German Emperor. He warned her that this could 
not go on, and even went so far as to ask the Prince 
not to call so often at his house, as this gave rise to 
ill-natured remarks that hurt him as well as the 
Countess H. Of course Frederick William did not 
pay the least attention to this warning, and one day 
Count H. found him sitting in his wife's boudoir, 
kissing her pretty hands with all the fervour which 
he knew so well how to express whenever he was 
attracted by a pretty face. The two men exchanged 
angry words, and at last the Crown Prince became 
furious and struck his host in the face. The latter 



A Young Wife's Misery 109 

happened to be a strong man six feet or so in 
height, and an athlete. He quietly took the future 
Sovereign by the collar and administered the sound- 
est thrashing one man ever gave another, after 
which he donned his uniform and repaired to the 
Palace, where he acquainted the Emperor with 
everything that had taken place. 

I leave it to the reader to imagine the feelings of 
the Kaiser when told of the mishap that had be- 
fallen his son and heir. He would dearly have 
liked to punish severely Count H., but how could 
he do so without proclaiming what it was policy on 
his part to conceal? He therefore contented him- 
self with ordering the culprit to leave Berlin im- 
mediately with his pretty wife whose lovely face 
had been the cause of this catastrophe, and he de- 
cided to send the Crown Prince abroad for some 
months under the pretext of a journey around the 
world for the purpose of completing his education. 
But William II understood at the same time the 
necessity for this journey taking place under cir- 
cumstances that would not provoke disagreeable 
comments, so he sent for his daughter-in-law and 
after explaining to her as well as he could without 
too greatly hurting her feelings the circumstances 



no The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

of the case, he asked her as a personal favour to 
consent to accompany her husband to India and 
elsewhere. 

Princess Cecile refused. For one thing, she did 
not wish to be parted from her children for a whole 
year. Then she did not care at all to leave her 
home and her friends, in order to roam about the 
world in the company of a man who, she knew but 
too well, would show himself anything but a pleas- 
ant travelling companion. After a good deal of 
discussion, a compromise was at last effected. The 
Crown Princess consented to leave BerHn with the 
Prince, and to go with him as far as Egypt, but 
she asked permission to leave him there to con- 
tinue his journey alone, and to remain herself in 
Cairo, whence she would make an excursion on her 
own account to Upper Egypt, taking her ladies- 
in-waiting, her chamberlain and her secretary, after 
which she was to be allowed to go back to Potsdam, 
where she wished to take up her residence until the 
return of the Crown Prince. 

The Kaiser consented. Indeed he would have 
consented to anything provided he could hush the 
terrible scandal of which his eldest son had been 
the cause. So Cecile started with the Crown Prince 



A Young Wife's Misery iii 

for the East, with the promise of William II that 
she would be allowed her own way, and not be asked 
to go to India or elsewhere with her fickle spouse, 
from whom, she owned, she would not be sorry to 
be parted for a while. 

Before she left Berlin, the Kaiserin, who had 
been terribly grieved and perturbed at what had 
taken place, wished to show some graciousness to 
her daughter-in-law and, desirous of pleasing her, 
she ordered for her a complete outfit of new clothes 
suitable for a journey up the Nile. They were 
practical and even pretty clothes, but certainly not 
like the elaborate confections of which Cecile was 
so fond, and which were daily sent to her from 
Paris. The Crown Princess, instead of thanking 
her mother-in-law for her attention, simply re- 
marked that she was sorry she had spent so much 
money on things which she could not possibly wear 
and, producing the garment which she had sent 
for from her usual French modistes, she completely 
flabbergasted the unfortunate Augusta by turning 
over to her maids the dresses she had selected, cool- 
ly remarking that they would also require thin 
garments during their journey to Upper Egypt. 

Such incidents did not tend to make the Crown 



112 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

Princess popular among the members of the Prus- 
sian Royal Family, whatever she was in society, 
and of course it was a thousand pities that she could 
not restrain herself better, but on the other hand 
one must make allowances for all that the poor 
little woman had endured and not judge her too 
harshly for her fits of impatience, which, when all 
was said and done, were amply justified by all the 
insults she had been subjected to, and by the bru- 
tahty with which her husband continually treated 
her, a brutality that might have broken her heart 
and spirit had she not been an unusually strong 
and brave character. 




Photo by Paul Thompson. 

The Ex-Crown Prince with His Wife 
AND Three Sons 



CHAPTER XII 

THE SPHINX BY MOONLIGHT 

It was with a feeling of intense and real relief 
that the Princess Cecile parted from her husband 
and saw him embark on the steamer which was to 
carry him away to Ceylon, Bombay and nmnerous 
other places, which she did not care in the least to 
visit with him. She took a suite of rooms in one of 
the principal hotels of Cairo and settled there quiet- 
ly with the intention of spending a winter far from 
the worries of Berlin, during which she would be 
able to do whatever she liked, and to see whomever 
she cared to know. Madame von Thiele Winkler 
had accompanied her, and it was then that the dif- 
ference of character of the two ladies became more 
and more accentuated, and that sometimes ujipleas- 
ant discussions took place between them. Cecile 
wished to lead the existence of a simple tourist, and 
to go about as any ordinary mortal would do. She 
took long rides, either on horseback or on a donkey, 
according to her fancy; she wandered in the Arab 

113 



114 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

quarters of Cairo ; she spent hours sketching in the 
Island of Rhodes, or at Memphis, the ruins of which 
had an immense attraction for her, and in short 
she enjoyed herself in a perfectly innocent, but at 
the same time perfectly unconventional fashion, 
which caused her faithful Mistress of the Robes 
many heart-burnings, for her imagination recoiled 
with horror at the thought of her beloved princess 
running about with a Baedeker under her arm and 
chatting with all the dirty donkey boys she met. 
She thought such conduct undignified, and she re- 
monstrated with Cecile on the subject of her levity, 
adding that she must not forget that she was the 
object of the general attention of the gay and cos- 
mopolitan society of Cairo, who gossiped to its 
heart's content concerning her behaviour, and who 
did not scruple to call her flighty and giddy when 
it saw her cantering on the road leading to the 
Pyramids with her hair all untidy, and sometimes 
— oh, horror — ^without gloves. But the Crown 
Princess, who did not intend to allow any court 
etiquette to interfere with her pleasures, snubbed 
poor Madame Thiele Winkler, who at last gave up 
trying to check her young mistress, and confined 
herself to suggesting that perhaps it would be just 



The Sphinx by Moonlight 115 

as well to think of proceeding to Upper Egypt be- 
fore the weather got too hot to interfere with the 
pleasure of such an excursion. 

The Crown Princess did not object; so a daha- 
beeah was hired, and the two ladies, accompanied 
by a chamberlain, started for Luxor and Assouan. 
Cecile was enchanted. She admired everything: 
the temples, the ruins, the sky, the river, the cli- 
mate, the Arabs, and the fellahs, — everything, in 
short. They spent a few days at the hotel in Luxor, 
and the Princess was never to forget the wonder- 
ful evenings spent on the terrace overlooking the 
Nile, with the soft breeze fanning her cheek, and 
the wonderful stars and moon lighting the weird 
scene. She felt happy to live and to be there, and 
she tried to forget, and indeed forgot at times all 
she had already endured and all that awaited her in 
the future when the present dream would be at an 
end, and she should find herself once more in Ber- 
lin, condemned to play a part she knew that she 
did not act well enough to deceive any one who ob- 
sen'^ed her, whether with a sympathetic or with a 
critical eye. She would have liked the present time 
to last for ever, and wished she had been born a 
simple mortal and not a Royal Princess, unable to 



ii6 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

escape the fetters of an existence that had grown 
repugnant to her, in spite of all its splendour and 
the magnificence of its surroundings. 

She said something to that effect to Madame 
Thiele Winkler, and the latter lady was horrified 
at hearing such language from the lips of her fu- 
ture Sovereign; so she decided that after such an 
experience she would not remain any longer with 
the Crown Princess, but would give her health as 
a pretext for resigning her position when they 
should return to Berhn; and in the meanwhile she 
addressed fervent prayers to Heaven that nothing 
disastrous might happen to her charge during the 
weeks that they had still to remain together in 
Egypt, the atmosphere of which she maintained was 
decidedly not wholesome for the Princess Cecile, 
who ought to be taken home as soon as possible. 
She wrote something to this effect to the Kaiser, 
urging him to recall his daughter-in-law, for whose 
actions and conduct she refused to be made re- 
sponsible. 

The good woman could not understand Cecile, 
and though she was devoted to her she certainly 
did not know how to guide her. If she had been 
wise, she would have been glad to think that the 



The Sphinx by Moonlight 117 

Princess had at last an opportunity to live her own 
life in the innocent manner which she liked, free 
from the restraint she had been compelled to im- 
pose upon herself, and upon her actions, for so 
many years. But she was not wise, and the preju- 
dices of her education and of the people who had 
surrounded her since her youth were stronger than 
her devotion to the unhappy girl who would so eas- 
ily have opened her heart to her if she had only en- 
couraged her to do so; and she could not under- 
stand why, feeling that she had no one to confide 
in, Cecile should have sought distraction in her lone- 
liness and solitude by the contemplation of nature 
and the beauty of her surroundings. 

The excursion to Upper Egypt took six weeks or 
so, and then the Crown Princess returned to Cairo 
for a few days previous to embarking for Europe. 
She wished to enjoy a short visit to the desert be- 
fore making the return journey, and she repaired 
with her suite to Mena House. The Pyramids, and 
especially the Sphinx, had always had a singular 
attraction for her. She liked to sit beside the huge 
figure whose secret no one has guessed, especially 
by moonlight, when its mutilated features assume 
such a weird, strange expression, and on the last 



Ii8 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

evening of her stay in the httle hotel that has seen 
so many visitors come and go since its erection at 
the very entrance of the desert, Cecile managed to 
slip out of her room unknown to any one, and made 
her way quite alone towards the Sphinx. She threw 
herself on the sand beside it and gazed into its 
sealed eyes, as if trying to guess the secrets which 
it had kept so jealously for so many thousands of 
years. She was so absorbed by her contemplation 
of the magnificent stone image that she did not 
notice a man who was coming rapidly towards the 
place where she sat until he actually stood before 
her, and in a voice which she had never thought she 
would hear again, addressed her. 

^'Princess, is it you? What a surprise! I never 
thought I would find you here." 

And Cecile recognised the young American who 
had warned her so seriously against marrying the 
Crown Prince, at Cannes, so many years before, 

"You!" she exclaimed in her turn. "How do 
you come to be here ? If you only knew how often 
I have thought about you, all through these years!" 

"Have you?" he exclaimed, "have you really 
thought about me? I had believed myself forgot- 



The Sphinx by Moonlight 119 

ten, and yet God knows how often I have thought 
of you." 

He stopped. He could not trust himself to say 
anything more. She was here before him, the crea- 
ture of his dreams, more lovely, more beautiful, 
more charming than ever. And yet, and yet . . . 

Cecile stretched out her hands toward him, and 
made him sit down on the sand beside her. 

"I am so glad to meet you again. I have so often 
wished I could see you, and tell you how right you 
were in all that you said to me then, at Cannes. 
Oh, if I had but listened to you!" 

"You are unhappy," he murmured. 

"Yes," she frankly repHed, "more unhappy than 
you can think or imagine. And I am so lonely, so 
entirely lonely." 

And then she proceeded in her quiet voice to re- 
late all that had passed during the long years which 
had elapsed since they had parted. She spoke 
without emotion, simply telling her story, but her 
accent of complete and absolute despair smote to 
the heart the young man who all through these years 
had cherished her memory as something sacred and 
holy. 

For more than half an hour Cecile spoke, and 



120 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

when she had finished, she once more stretched her 
hands towards her companion. 

"And now that you know all, what do you ad- 
vise me to do?" she asked. "I do so want to have 
a friend in whom I can confide. Will you be that 
friend?" 

He looked at her with a curious expression of 
sorrow, affection and distress in his eyes. 

"No, my poor little Princess," he replied, "I can- 
not be that friend. It would be repaying very 
badly your confidence in me if I allowed you to do 
anything which might harm you. Before your mar- 
riage I could have done anything you would have 
wished me to do for you, but now I must think for 
both of us. I know but too well how you are sur- 
rounded by impassable barriers beyond which you 
cannot step without endangering all the peace of 
your existence. For your sake, for your children's 
sake, I must not permit you to see me after to- 
night. Chance has brought us together, and per- 
haps chance has done right, because now I can hope 
that you will keep a little place for me in your beau- 
tiful heart, but help you beyond going away from 
you, I cannot, and God hear me, I will not." 

Cecile burst into tears. 



The Sphinx by Moonlight 121 

"You are cruel," she murmured through her sobs. 
"Why did we meet again if it is to end thus?" 

"It is you who are cruel, my beloved Princess," 
replied the young man. "I am only doing my duty, 
and I should be a poor sort of creature if I allowed 
you to be carried away by your kind heart, and 
regardless of consequences harm yourself, perhaps 
to an irreparable extent. You are my ideal, my 
divinity, and you must not come down from the 
shrine in which I have placed you. Remember that 
any imprudence on your part would put terrible 
weapons into the hands of your enemies, and do 
not ask me to contribute to your fall and misfor- 
tune. I am thankful to God that He has granted 
me the joy of seeing you again, and looking once 
more upon your face. But I must not do it after 
to-day. Our paths in life are divided and wide 
apart. May Providence smooth the road you must 
walk upon ! As for myself, well, I am a man, and 
I suppose that I can bear it." 

The Crown Princess got up and stood before 
him. She was almost as tall as he, and her slight, 
slim figure stood out in a sharp outline against the 
darkness of the Sphinx and its immense, towering 
mass. 



122 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

For a lon^ time she remained immovable in that 
position, gazing at the star-lit sky; then at last she 
spoke, but this time it was in a husky voice, totally 
unlike her usual one. 

"You are right, as you were right before; but 
why, oh, why has God put that temptation into my 
path?" 

"Is it a temptation?" he exclaimed, with some- 
thing like eagerness in his tone. 

"Yes," she replied, "but you were right, we must 
trample it down." 

He bent over her hands and kissed them rev- 
erently. 

"Good-bye," he said, "but let me tell you one 
thing before we part. None of us knows what fate 
has in reserve for us, but if ever in the future 
years I can come to you without its harming you, 
and if you still think what you think now, still feel 
what you are feeling to-day, then, I beg you, call 
me! I shall come, and claim the friendship which 
I am obliged to refuse at present." 

"Amen," answered the Princess solemnly. 

And without adding another word she turned 
away and walked rapidly towards the hotel. On 
the threshold she turned round once more to see if 



The Sphinx by Moonlight 123 

she could perceive the Sphinx in its silent grandeur, 
but the night had suddenly closed upon the scene, 
and blurred out the moon-lit landscape, upon which 
she had gazed a few moments earlier. Everything 
had grown dark outside as well as in her own 
heart. . . . 

Three days later the Crown Princess and her 
suite sailed for Venice. She had told no one, and 
no one had guessed what had happened to her dur- 
ing that last visit she had paid to the Sphinx, into 
whose face so many have gazed in the vain hope of 
its betraying its eternal secrets. 



CHAPTER XIII 

WHAT PEOPLE THOUGHT ABOUT 
THE CROWN PRINCESS IN BERLIN 

The Cecile who returned to Berlin was a very 
different woman from the one who had left it a 
short time before. She was more serious, more se- 
date, far less inclined for joking, and she began to 
exhibit considerable interest in books, politics, 
science, and other subjects which had not interested 
her during the early years of her marriage. She 
tried to find a diversion from her domestic trials 
by seeking the society of people of prominence in 
the German capital, rather than of the gay, butter- 
fly set which had surrounded her formerly. Un- 
fortunately for her this change in her character lost 
her a great deal of popularity. People reproached 
her for being fickle, and for neglecting her old 
friends, whilst those amidst whom she attempted to 
find new companions and associates looked upon 
her as a child in quest of new toys. She had so 
completely won for herself the reputation of a friv- 

124 



What People Thought About Princess 125 

olous little girl that no one would believe in her 
conversion and all simply laughed at her when she 
attempted to revive the old traditions of the Kron- 
prinzlichen Palais, as her town residence was called, 
such as it had been during the time when it was oc- 
cupied by the Emperor Frederick III and his ac- 
complished consort, the Princess Victoria of Great 
Britain. She gave small evening parties at which 
only notabihties in the world of letters, science and 
art were invited, but they proved a failure, because 
the hostess lacked the knowledge necessary to en- 
sure their success, and also because it became very 
soon known that the Kaiser did not approve of 
these attempts of his daughter-in-law to create for 
herself a circle of friends who might easily, under 
her protection, become a source of embarrassment 
to the government. He once or twice gave the 
Crown Princess to understand that she had better 
stop her endeavours to become an independent per- 
sonage in his Empire, but she paid no attention to 
his hints, and went her way without heeding the 
warning which reached her from various sources, 
thus jeopardising her amicable relations with her 
father-in-law, who indeed very soon grew tired of 
her and her reckless doings, of which he disap- 



126 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

proved, so that she killed the friendship which had 
at one time existed between them, a fact of which 
the world very soon became aware, and which did 
not help to make her position any easier or pleas- 
anter. Poor Cecile was fast drifting on a road that 
could only bring her trouble and sorrow, and she 
was to regret most bitterly later on having gone 
her own way in defiance of the good advice that had 
been given her by the few sincere friends she still 
had. It was about a month or so after her return 
to Germany from Egypt that her Mistress of the 
Robes, Madame Thiele Winkler, left her, not car- 
ing to be responsible any longer for many things 
of which she did not approve. Her place was taken 
by a certain Frau von Alvensleben, an excellent old 
woman, but with no experience of the world in spite 
of her knowledge of etiquette, and the last person 
capable of guiding the impetuous girl over whom 
she was supposed to watch. The Crown Princess 
simply ridiculed her, and laughed in her face when« 
ever she remonstrated with her because of her dis- 
regard of the old-fashioned ceremonial in use at 
the Prussian Court. Cecile was beginning to as- 
sert herself, and in so doing she lost a good deal of 
her former popularity. 



What People Thought About Princess 127 

Her sisters-in-law were doing all they could to 
make her position an unpleasant one. For instance, 
when she sent out invitations for a series of small 
dances, which she gave after her return to Potsdam, 
they immediately criticised her action, remarking 
that it was most surprising "poor dear Cecile" cared 
to receive guests in her hubsand's absence when 
there was no one besides herself to do the honours 
of her house. "But to be sure," they added, "poor 
Cecile can not know what is seemly, having been 
brought up by that eccentric Russian woman, the 
Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia." 

These words were, of course, repeated to Cecile 
with the result that she became even more embit- 
tered than before toward her relations-in-law. What 
she particularly resented were the criticisms ad- 
dressed to her mother, whom she loved so dearly, 
and missed so much. So she retaliated by not in- 
viting to her next party the two Princesses who had 
offended her, which brought upon her head the 
WTath of the Kaiserin, who declared that such a 
breach of Court etiquette could not be tolerated, 
and herself brought her two other daughters-in- 
law to Cecile's dance, a fact that provoked the lat- 
ter so much that she pretended a sudden indisposi- 



128 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

tion and, leaving the Empress to receive her guests 
in her place, retired to her private apartments, from 
which nothing could make her emerge. 

Of course all this was but a trifle, but very often 
it is trifles that play the most important part in the 
wrecking of human lives, and the Crown Princess 
of Germany was to find this out to her cost. 

After the incident of this unfortunate party, Ce- 
cile, in defiance of the Kaiser and without asking 
his leave, had her boxes packed and left Berlin for 
a short visit to her mother at Cannes, under pretext 
of going to meet her sister, the Queen of Denmark. 
Once among the associations of her early youth the 
Princess became quieter, and more like her former 
self, but those who knew her well could not but ob- 
serve the change that had taken place in her whole 
character, and wondered what grief she was carry- 
ing locked up in her heart. 

She had never told any one, with the exception 
of her mother, of the incident which had taken place 
in Egypt, when she had been once more brought 
face to face with the young man who had been one 
of the constant visitors of the Villa Wenden in by- 
gone days, when she was still a girl, happy and 
careless of aught else but the pleasures of the hour. 



What People Thought About Princess 129 

The Grand Duchess, whose experience of life was 
great, guessed all the consequences which such an 
encounter might have in the future, and she urged 
Cecile to give up every thought of meeting again 
the splendid fellow whom they had both liked so 
much. She had her child's welfare at heart, and 
she did all she could to persuade her to look upon 
her lot in life with resignation, and to seek consola- 
tion in the brighter side of her present and future 
position, adding that everybody had his or her sor- 
rows to fight against, and that it was useless to 
murmur at what could not be helped or cured 
but must only be endured. 

And she did something more. She decided, much 
as she disliked Berlin and its court, to take the 
Crown Princess back to her home and thereby pre- 
vent people making ill-natured remarks concerning 
her long absence abroad. She wished also to thank 
the Kaiser for having allowed her daughter to visit 
her at Cannes, and to recommend her to him and to 
his affection. But William II, as I have had oc- 
casion to relate, hated the Grand Duchess Anas- 
tasia with an undying hatred, and he did not wish 
to see her or to permit her to come to his capital. 
So that to the surprise of the Crown Princess, as 



130 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

well as to that of her mother, the latter received at 
the Swiss frontier a telegram from the Emperor 
telling her that one of the conditions of Cecile's 
marriage had been that the Dowager Grand Duch- 
ess of Mecklenburg should not come to Berlin, and 
therefore he asked her not to do so, because if she 
persisted in her intention he would be compelled to 
refuse to receive her, and to forbid her being seen 
with the Crown Princess in public. 

It may be imagined what impression was pro- 
duced by such a message on the impressionable na- 
ture of Cecile. She burst into floods of tears and 
declared that if the Kaiser refused to meet her 
mother, she would in her turn refuse to see the 
Kaiser, or to return home. Anastasia Michaylowna, 
however, was wiser than her daughter, and she 
urged her again to forget, forgive and make the 
best of circumstances, repeating the remark she had 
made once already, that she was younger than Wil- 
liam II and therefore could count upon surviving 
him, when she and the Crown Princess would be 
free to do what they both pleased. So she kissed 
her daughter, and far from trying to keep her in 
Cannes, persuaded her to shorten her stay there, 
and to go back to her children, advice which her 



What People Thought About Princess 131 

rebellious girl was at first not at all inclined to 
follow, and which perhaps she would not have fol- 
lowed but for the incident I am going to describe. 

One morning the Crown Princess found in her 
mail a letter, the envelope of which was typewrit- 
ten. She opened it with a certain curiosity, won- 
dering who could be writing to her in that way, 
typewritten communications not being considered 
proper to send to Royalty, according to the eti- 
quette prevailing at European Courts. She found 
within this envelope a small sheet of paper on which 
were the following words, also carefully typed: 

"In your own interest, I urge you to return to 
Berlin. You would commit an irreparable mistake 
if you delayed doing so. In remembrance of the 
Sphinx, I entreat you to follow my advice." 

That was all. There was no signature, and the 
post stamp on the letter only showed that it had 
been sent from Paris. Otherwise there was no clue 
as to the identity of its writer, but Cecile knew at 
once who he was, and, after having shed many a 
tear, she told her mother at last that she was ready 
to obey her, and to go back to her dreary German 
Palace. She did not add that the mysterious letter 
that had reached her so unexpectedly had been 



132 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

sown into a little silk bag, which Cecile hung around 
her neck, attached to a gold chain which she was 
never to take off until her husband, in one of his 
fits of rage, tore it away from her and threw it in 
the fire. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE CROWN PRINCE'S RETURN 

Whilst his wife had been battling with increas- 
ing difficulties, the Crown Prince had enjoyed him- 
self. For the first time in his existence he had been 
free from every kind of restraint, and able to do 
just as he liked, without any reference to others. 
He had been extremely well received everywhere; 
in India especially great honours had been paid 
to him, and he had been given every possible oppor- 
tunity to enjoy his favourite occupation, that of 
sport. He was a fine shot, which had predisposed 
in his favour all the Englishmen he had met, and 
he had tried to be amiable, and to make himself 
pleasant, so that the little indiscretions of which he 
had been guilty here and there had been hushed up, 
and the Kaiser was never informed of them. The 
Prince would have liked nothing better than to re- 
main in India, with which he had quite fallen in 
love, but, alas, his orders were precise, and he was 
to go on to China and Japan. But at this very 

133 



134 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

moment troubles broke out in the latter countries 
and the heir to the German Throne had to forego 
his intended trip to the Far East, and to prepare to 
return to Berhn, having received a telegram that 
his presence was needed there. 

He did not like it. Indeed, he would not have 
been human had he liked it. In Berhn he was no- 
body, whilst he had felt that he was very much 
somebody during his travels. Resistance, however, 
was quite out of the question, and the Crown Prince 
had to obey, and to embark on a German ship that 
carried him back to the dear "Vaterland" of which, 
like every good German, he was very proud. But 
on his way home he had an opportunity to think a 
great deal, with the result that he made up his mind 
to try to win for himself a position more important 
than the official one he was enjoying by right of his 
birth. He was clever enough to realise that in or- 
der to do this he required the assistance of his wife ; 
so he showed himself exceedingly attentive to Ce- 
cile when she met him at the railway station, and 
when they returned to their own Palace, after the 
Prince had paid his respects to the Kaiser, he un- 
folded to the Crown Princess the plans which he 
had had the time to make on board ship, and asked 



The Crown Prince's Return 135 

her whether she would help him in his desire to be 
initiated into pohtics, and to make himself popular 
with the army, that had never taken kindly to the 
Emperor, whom it accused of not having sufficiently 
at heart its welfare and interests. 

Cecile had her own grievances against William 
II, so she readily fell in with her husband's sug- 
gestions, and promised him to do what she could 
to help him. They were both of them ambitious, 
through different motives it is true, but ambitious 
nevertheless, and they were both suffering from the 
persistence with which the Emperor refused to see 
in them anything else but children whom he could, 
when it pleased him, scold and even chastise accord- 
ing to his will. 

Very soon it was rumoured that the Crown Prince 
had taken to studying seriously politics and mili- 
tary science, under the guidance of an eminent pro- 
fessor whom he had asked to help and advise him 
as to a course of serious reading which he intended 
to begin. It was further said that the Crown Prin- 
cess was sharing his occupations, and that she also 
had become interested in the various serious sub- 
jects that had attracted her consort's attention. 
And this news was favourably received by the pub- 



136 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

lie at large, as well as by the army, because at the 
annual Review which took place in Berlin during 
the first week in May, the Crown Prince, when he 
appeared on the field riding a superb bay horse, 
was received by the troops assembled there with 
vociferous acclamations that contrasted vividly with 
the silence which greeted the Kaiser when in his 
turn he arrived a few moments later. 

The incident provoked the Emperor, and he for- 
bade his heir to precede him on official occasions, 
changing the Court etiquette, in order that the 
Crown Prince might not become the recipient of 
acclamations which he considered he did not de- 
serve. And wishing this order to be conveyed to 
him, he sent for the Crown Princess, and told her 
that she must acquaint her husband with his de- 
cision. 

Cecile tried in vain to persuade her father-in-law 
that he had better speak himself to his son. The 
Emperor remained firm in his determination; so 
the Princess had no choice but to obey. And, as 
she had expected, her husband became furious with 
her, and accused her of intriguing against him. A 
stormy scene took place between them, and for the 
second time in their married life, the Crown Prince 



The Crown Prince's Return 137 

lifted his hand against his wife, and would have 
dealt her a heavy blow if, luckily for her, she had not 
been able to escape through a door which led into the 
garden, where she sought a refuge until her iras- 
cible spouse had departed for Berlin, whither he 
repaired in obedience to an order from his father, 
who wished him to represent him on the occasion of 
the official opening of a school or hospital, such as 
took place almost every day in the capital. When 
she was quite sure that her husband had left the 
house, Cecile sent for her maids, and with their 
help removed her belongings to another part of the 
Palace, next to her babies' nurseries. She fully ex- 
pected the Prince would be horrified when he dis- 
covered on his return home what she had done, but 
to her great surprise he only expressed his satisfac- 
tion, and merely remarked that he had never ex- 
pected his wife to show herself so sensible as to 
deliver him from her constant presence at his side. 
Nevertheless, he asked her later on not to change 
anything in their daily existence, and to continue 
to help him with her advice on political matters. 
He knew her to be an exceedingly clever woman, 
and he had confidence in her judgment. But this 
did not prevent him from thwarting her at every 



138 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

step and making her life a burden to her. He had 
absolutely no dehcacy of manner, and held the opin- 
ion that he had the right to do what he hked in re- 
gard to his wife and to all that belonged to her. 
For instance, one day being in want of money, he 
appropriated to himself the monthly allowance of 
the Princess, leaving her without a penny for her 
private expenses, save what she happened to have 
in her purse. Cecile complained, upon which the 
Kaiser had again to interfere, and to try to explain 
to his heir that he ought to discriminate between 
what belonged to him and to his consort. In spite 
of these domestic scenes, the public at large re- 
mained ignorant of the strained relations which ex- 
isted between the Crown Prince and Princess. The 
latter was a proud woman, and she played the game 
extremely well, perhaps even too well in certain 
respects, because she affected an indifference which 
gave her family, or rather her husband's family, the 
impression that she was a heartless creature who 
did not care for anything in the world except her 
dresses, bonnets and hats, and for whom a cotillon 
was of more importance than the opinion of the 
public or the affection of her relatives. But all the 
while her heart was slowly breaking, and she was 



The Crown Prince's Return 139 

thinking more and more of the friend of her youth, 
of the young and gallant American who had spoken 
to her with such deep emotion and respect on that 
day, or rather that night, when they had met under 
the shadow of the great Sphinx at Mena House. 
She wondered what had become of him, and what 
he was doing, and often she felt tempted to write 
to her mother and ask her whether she had heard 
from him. But her courage failed her; she knew 
that the Grand Duchess would not reply to her 
question, and that she would only be needlessly 
alarmed were she to know that her daughter was 
still clinging to the recollection of that memorable 
interview of which she had disapproved, and the re- 
membrance of which she would have liked to drive 
out of the memory of poor little Cecile who, in her 
guileless way, sincerely believed that it was helping 
her to bear up under the difficulties with which her 
life was beset. 

During those years the Crown Princess had be- 
come a beautiful woman. Her figure had developed 
and she had outgrown the delicate look which she 
had had as a girl. Her face, always charming, 
had assumed the lines which only appear after 
great waves of human sorrow have closed over a 



140 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

woman's head. Her eyes, too, which frequently 
showed signs of moisture, had acquired a soft, sweet 
expression that might have revealed to a careful 
observer some of the inner battles which she had 
fought against her wounded pride, and her outraged 
heart and soul. The fact was that she felt like 
one imprisoned and she showed that such was the 
case. 

Morally and intellectually she had also made 
wonderful progress. Common sense had killed the 
impetuosity of youth, and the necessity of repress- 
ing her thoughts and feelings had lent an additional 
charm to her manners and speech. She had become 
prudent, if not wise, and she had developed tact and 
knowledge of the world to an uncommon degree 
for one so young and so devoid of experience. And, 
as had not been the case before, she had at last 
reahsed all the importance of her position as the 
future Empress of Germany and Queen of Prus- 
sia. She tried to find in its advantages, pomp and 
ceremony, solace if not consolation for her numer- 
ous woes. Ambition was beginning to take the 
upper hand of everything else, and it was only when 
ambition failed her that she took the great resolu- 
tion of giving up all that had been left her, to ac- 



The Crown Prince's Return 141 

quire what had failed her all through her life — the 
affection of a good and honest man who, though 
loving her to distraction, had never once dared fco 
tell her so. 



CHAPTER XV 

MOTHER, MOTHER, WHY CAX'T YOU 
COME TO ME? 

Theee was at that time among the fashionable 
ladies belonging to the cream of Berlin society a 
young person whose name it is needless to mention, 
who enjoyed quite a privileged position at Court, 
owing to her great name, the illustrious family of 
which her husband was the head, his wealth, and 
her own beauty and attractive personality. The 
Crown Prince had always admired the Duchess of 
A., and though perhaps tliis admiration was not 
mutual, yet the latter would have liked to become 
the Egeria of the future ^Monarch, and to play an 
important part in the poHtical game, of which the 
peace of Europe was the stake. She was clever, 
and her propensity for intrigue made her a for- 
midable enemy for the Crown Princess, whose hon- 
est, straightforward nature could never have lent 
itself to anything which savoured of miderhanded- 
ness and who always followed what she considered 

142 



Mother, Mother, Come to Me 143 

to be the right way, without accepting compromises, 
which she considered beneath her dignity. The 
Duchess took to inviting the Crown Prince to visit 
her, not only in her Berhn flat, but also in the mag- 
nificent castle which the Duke possessed on the 
banks of the Rhine, where she used to spend part 
of the year with him, and where she entertained 
her friends with great pomp and magnificence. She 
was an ambitious woman, and many people said 
that her aim was to get the heir to the German 
Throne to divorce his wife, and to marry her, after 
she had herself divorced her own husband, which 
it would not have been at all difficult for her to do. 
Cecile had always disliked her, and had made no 
secret about the fact, a circumstance that rankled 
deep in the heart of the energetic and clever Duch- 
ess, and that she never forgave. Accordingly she 
set herself to embitter the Crown Prince against his 
consort, and to repeat to him every detrimental 
thing which ever reached her ears concerning the 
Crown Princess, whom she tried to paint in the 
blackest colours, an easy thing to do because he was 
but too ready to believe any accusation against his 
wife, no matter what might be its nature. He had 
become thoroughly weary of her, and since his re- 



144 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

turn from India had neglected her more than ever, 
notwithstanding the fact that he had asked her to 
help him in his various ambitious schemes. Now 
Cecile, though she no longer loved her husband, 
would yet have given a good deal to be able 
to live with him once more upon the terms of con- 
fidence and intimacy which had existed between 
them during the first months that had followed upon 
their marriage. She was also ambitious, and she 
had at last grasped the wisdom of her mother's ad- 
vice, to try to make the best of her disagreeable 
position, in view of the splendid prospects it of- 
fered to her in the future. The idea that another 
woman could come to be paramount in her con- 
sort's affection was therefore exceedingly unpleas- 
ant to her, and she snubbed the Duchess of A. when- 
ever she could conveniently do so, going so far as 
to tell her one evening that she ought to have put 
on a different dress, the one which she had on being 
so ugly and so badly made. As may be imagined, 
this remark did not help to improve the relations 
between the two ladies. The climax of the story 
was reached one day when, through the mistake of 
a servant, a letter from the Duchess addressed to 
the Crown Prince fell into the hands of the latter's 



Mother, Mother, Come to Me 145 

wife. It was a compromising letter in the sense 
that it proved he had given her his entire confidence 
and had even consulted her upon different political 
matters, which he had carefully refrained from men- 
tioning to the Crown Princess. Cecile was shrewd 
enough to grasp at once the capital she could make 
out of this proof of the fickleness of Frederick Wil- 
liam's character, and she immediately laid the in- 
criminating document under the eyes of her father- 
in-law, asking him at the same time what he ad- 
vised her to do under such painful circumstances. 

The Emperor was stunned. He also had been 
one of the admirers of the Duchess of A., a fact 
of which his daughter-in-law had not perhaps been 
entirely ignorant, and it hurt him to the quick to 
find that she was upon such terms of intimacy with 
his own son. He sent for the minister of his house- 
hold. Count von Eulenburg, and told him that he 
must contrive in some way to induce the Duke of A. 
to leave Berlin, and not to return for a considerable 
time. Count von Eulenburg did not care at all for 
this mission, and he told the Emperor so, adding 
that he thought the best thing would be for the 
Sovereign to speak himself to the Duke, and, under 
pretext of caring for the peace of mind of the 



146 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

Crown Princess, ask him to take his lovely wife 
away, at least for some time, so as to put an end 
to the jealousy of his daughter-in-law. William 
II followed this advice, but the result of it was 
as unpleasant as unexpected, because the Duke of 
A. immediately challenged the Crown Prince to a 
duel, saying that he could not allow the world to 
say that he had compromised the Duchess in any 
way whatsoever. 

The situation became a very embarrassing one. 
The Duke of A.'s birth and social position made 
him the equal of the Crown Prince, and he had, ac- 
cording even to the strictest notions of etiquette 
prevaihng at any German court, the absolute right 
to claim satisfaction for his supposed wrongs from 
the Heir to the German Empire. It was not, how- 
ever, the intention of the Kaiser to allow such a 
duel to take place. He hated a scandal above every- 
thing else in the world, and did not in the least 
mean his son to become entangled in one if he could 
help it. So the Duke of A. was simply told he had 
better repair to his Rhenish castle and estate, and 
the Crown Prince was given peremptory orders to 
forget everything that concerned the Duchess of A. 
He might have done so, because constancy certainly 



Mother, Mother, Come to Me 147 

did not figure among his virtues, had it not been 
that his wife had not sufficient tact to keep her 
secret, and not give him opportunities to upbraid 
her, and to accuse her of conspiring against his 
peace of mind. Cecile was not gentle or forbear- 
ing, and on the day that she discovered the Prince 
had other interests in life than his home and his chil- 
dren, she hardened her heart against him, and made 
him pay bitterly for all the recklessness of his con- 
duct in regard to her, and to her claims on his con- 
sideration and respect. 

The Duke of A. had been compelled to submit 
to the request of the Kaiser, and to leave Berlin. 
He had, however, made his conditions before bid- 
ding good-bye to the ugly city on the banks of the 
Spree: he had stipulated that his departure should 
not be hastened unnecessarily, and that he should 
be permitted to entertain his numerous friends, and 
to be entertained by them, previous to his departure. 
This had been granted him, and for about a month 
or so the aristocracy and social leaders of the Ger- 
man capital outvied themselves in the receptions 
which they organised in honour of the lovely Duch- 
ess. One of these festivities took the form of a 
ball which was given at the house of Prince S., 



148 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

one of the most important personages at the court 
of William II. The Duchess of A. was awarded a 
place of honour, and told to take her seat at the 
supper-table at which the Crown Princess presided, 
which of course was a very tactless thing to do. 
Cecile, when she saw her rival approach her, turned 
her back upon her, and said in a loud tone of voice, 
and perfectly distinctly: "I do not want to have the 
Duchess at my table; give her a seat at the one 
over which the Crown Prince presides; it will be 
much better, and make everybody happier, myself 
included." 

One can imagine the scandal! The Duke of A., 
who had overheard the words of the Crown Prin- 
cess, went up to her and asked her what she meant. 
Cecile looked him straight in the face and replied, 
as loudly as she could, that she meant exactly what 
she had said: that the Crown Prince would know 
how to entertain the Duchess, a thing which she 
could never undertake to do. 

The Duke of A. did the only thing that a gentle- 
man could do. He offered his arm to his consort, 
and led her from the room. The next day, both 
husband and wife left Berlin, with the intention of 
never returning there again. Cecile triumphed, but 



Mother, Mother, Come to Me 149 

only for a short time, because she was summoned 
by the Kaiserin, who severely reprimanded her, and 
told her that in her position she ought never to see 
or notice anything, and must only show herself 
pleased with everything that befell her. 

As may be imagined, this did not at all suit 
the Crown Princess, who immediately wrote to 
her brother, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin, asking him whether it was her duty to 
submit without murmuring to all the slights to 
which her husband and his lady friends were con- 
stantly subjecting her. The Grand Duke, whose 
mission in life appears to have been to restore union 
and peace in his sister's menage, hurried to Berlin 
and attempted to reason with the Princess, and to 
induce her not to notice the inconsequences of her 
husband. He felt, of course, very sorry for her, 
but at the same time he could not close his eyes to 
the importance which he would himself acquire later 
on, when he would have become the brother-in-law 
of the German Emperor, and he did not mean to 
permit his sister to take any rash step that might 
have been interpreted in an unfavourable way. But 
all that he could obtain from Cecile was a promise 
to abstain from taking any decisive step until she 



ISO The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

had had an opportunity to consult her mother. 
They accordingly both wrote to the Dowager 
Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg, asking her to tell 
them what, in her opinion, ought to be done. But 
long before these letters reached Anastasia Michay- 
lowna, in the French home where she had spent 
her time since the marriage of her daughter, the 
latter had realised all the drawbacks to the brilliant 
future she had imagined she was going to enjoy, 
and in her agony and distress of soul and mind had 
thrown herself more than once upon her bed, to 
smother her sobs in her pillows, with the heartrend- 
ing exclamation: "Mother, Mother, why can't you 
come to me?" 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE CROWN PRINCE'S BRUTALITY 

It was at about this time that the Crown Prince 
fell under the influence of the German military 
party, and allowed it to look upon him as the par- 
tisan of a new war with France or with Russia, or 
with both these countries. He thought it a good 
means of becoming popular, and this was something 
he had always longed for but had never attained. 
So he invited several officers from the General Staff 
to dinners and evening parties, after which he 
eagerly discussed with them the chances which Ger- 
many had of winning the new campaign that was 
once for all to make her the supreme mistress not 
only of Europe, but of the whole world. The 
Kaiser was blamed by him and his friends for hav- 
ing refused to take aggressive measures in regard 
to France as the Staff had urged him to do 
ever since the famous Agadir incident. They all 
declared that it was a shame Germany had climbed 
down before the Entente, and that nothing short 

151 



152 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

of a victorious war could wipe out this humiliation. 
These young men, in company with the heir to the 
throne, had started working at the remodelling of 
the whole map of Europe. Many plans concerning 
the future campaign were laid before the enthu- 
siastic eyes of the Crown Prince, until at last the 
Emperor thought it necessary to curb his warHke 
tendencies, and after the famous incident which took 
place in the Reichstag, when the Prince loudly ex- 
pressed his opinion by applauding the several 
speeches of the opposition when it attacked the gov- 
ernment in regard to its foreign policy, WiUiam 
II, perfectly furious with his first born, entrusted 
him with the command of the famous regiment 
called the Death Hussars, stationed in Dantzig, and 
sent him to that distant town with strict orders not 
to return to Berlin unless specially summoned. 
The Crown Prince, of course, could not resist, and 
started with the Princess for what was nothing more 
nor less than exile. But there again he com- 
mitted one of those indiscretions for which he had 
already made himself famous, and on assuming the 
command of his regiment made that remarkable 
speech which was reproduced in the newspapers of 
the whole world, in which he told his men that the 



The Crown Prince's Brutality 153 

only thing he looked forward to was to be able to 
lead them in war against the enemies of the country. 
One may imagine how poor Cecile suffered from 
all these exuberant demonstrations, which by that 
time had become quite familiar to her husband. She 
was half Russian by birth ; she loved Russia and its 
Imperial family, who had received her with effu- 
sion when she had paid them a visit shortly after 
her marriage, and all her early associations were 
connected with France, where she had been brought 
up and where she had spent the happiest years of 
her life. The idea that Germany might have to go 
to war with either of these two countries was in- 
expressibly painful to her, and her intelligence told 
her that such a struggle, if it ever took place, would 
have the most disastrous consequences for the whole 
of the civilised world. She therefore tried to stop 
the Crown Prince from giving way to his expres- 
sions of enthusiasm in regard to a future campaign 
that, according to her opinion, was bound to end 
in ruin for all the parties concerned in it. Her 
opinion, however, mattered but little in the eyes of 
her husband, who, on the contrary, taxed her with 
stupidity and ignorance whenever she ventured to 
express her ideas on this burning subject, so that 



154 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

the poor girl (she was hardly yet anything else) 
had at last to make up her mind never to say what 
she thought, and to retire to her own apartments 
whenever the Prince entertained the friends he 
hked to gather around him upon every possible oc- 
casion. 

One evening she was sitting alone in her boudoir, 
writing to her mother. From the dining-room of 
the small villa which the Crown Prince and his 
family occupied in Dantzig the sounds of revelry 
reached her ears. Her husband was entertaining 
the officers of his regiment, champagne was flow- 
ing freely, and speeches without number were being 
made. The shouts of "Hurrah! Hurrah!" shook the 
whole house, and poor Cecile felt quite dizzy from 
the noise. She did not care to go to bed, experience 
having taught her that when Frederick William 
was getting intoxicated, the best thing she could do 
was to wait until he had retired before doing so 
herself. 

So she took up some needlework, and tried to 
think of something else than the misery of her own 
existence. But this was easier said than done, and 
the unfortunate Cecile started dreaming of what 
might have been, and of all that she had missed in 



The Crown Prince's Brutality 155 

life. And then she remembered her American 
friend, and saw him once more in her imagination, 
tall and handsome, brave and gentle, incapable of 
a mean action or of an unkind deed. And whilst 
recapitulating in her mind all the details of their 
short acquaintance, she pulled out from her bosom 
the little white silk bag, in which she had sewed the 
letter which she had received some years before and 
which she felt certain had come from him, because 
no one else in the world could have given her such 
sound and disinterested advice. She undid the 
threads which held the bag together, and began 
gazing at the crumpled sheet of paper, which meant 
so much to her. So absorbed was she in her con- 
templation of it that she did not notice the door of 
the room opening slowly until the Crown Prince 
stood before her, with a face which told her at once 
that he had been drinking heavily. 

"What are you looking at?" he asked her. 

"Nothing, nothing," she replied, taken so much 
aback by the sudden appearance of her husband 
that she did not know what to say in her confusion. 

"What do you mean by nothing? It was a let- 
ter you were reading; show it to me." 

"I will not," replied the Princess, whose presence 



156 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

of mind was returning. "It does not concern you, 
and it is not a letter received now; it is quite an 
old one." 

"An old one that you carry on your heart. Why 
do you lie?" angrily exclaimed the Crown Prince. 
"Show me that paper ; show it to me," he thundered. 

"I will not," answered his wife, who by this time 
had risen from the armchair in which she had been 
reclining; "it does not concern you, and, besides, 
you would not understand it." 

"What do you mean by that? Do you think that 
I am an idiot, that I could not understand what is 
written on that paper? Once more, will you give 
it to me? It must be something very precious to 
you that you carry it next to your heart." 

Cecile simply walked towards the door without 
replying, but the Crown Prince, who was decidedly 
the worse for drink, seized her by the arm with 
such violence that he nearly threw her on her knees. 

"You are going to give me this letter," he 
screamed, and, tearing it from the clasped fingers 
of his wife, he perused its contents with eagerness. 

"So," he said, after a pause, whilst the terrified 
Princess crouched against the door, "this is a pretty 
state of things. You are having a secret corre- 



The Crown Prince's Brutality 157 

spondence with a man whom I do not know, and 
you are complaining to him about me. Well, you 
shall have reason to complain now, because I am 
going to chastise you as you deserve." 

He seized her once more by the arm, and, getting 
hold of a riding whip which happened to be lying 
on the table of the hall where he dragged her, he 
began raining blows upon the shoulders, back and 
even face of the miserable Cecile, whose screams 
awoke the servants. They, thinking that something 
dreadful had happened, came rushing from their 
rooms below. The butler threw himself upon the 
Prince and managed to rescue the Princess, who 
fled to her own rooms, but not without having seen 
the letter she had carried about for so long a time, 
and considered as her most cherished possession, 
thrown into the fire that was blazing in the large 
French chimney in the hall. 

Once in her private apartments, where she has- 
tened to lock herself, Cecile burst into the most bit- 
ter tears she had yet shed since her unhappy mar- 
riage. Her whole body was hurting her, and on 
her cheek one long, red line was standing out clear 
and distinct on her white, delicate skin. She felt 
degraded, humiliated, dragged into the gutter; and 



158 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

all her instincts of revolt arose in arms against the 
brute who had inflicted such an outrage upon her. 
She made up her mind that she would not bear it 
any longer, and that the only thing that remained 
for her to do was to run away, and seek this time 
forever a refuge among her own family. Surely 
her brother, when he saw the traces of the terrible 
treatment to which she had been subjected, would 
take her part and defend her. There were her chil- 
dren, of course, but she hoped that the Kaiser would 
prove merciful and allow her to keep them, at least 
part of the year. But for the present the only thing 
left for her to do was to fly ; to get away from the 
man who had degraded them both by his monstrous 
brutality. 

She opened her wardrobe and took out a dark 
travelhng costume, which she put on with trembling 
hands. Then she packed a small suit-case with a 
few necessary articles, hid her jewels, at least some 
of the most valuable ones, in the bosom of her dress, 
and after having taken money from her private 
drawer, where she always kept some ready for emer- 
gencies, she softly entered her children's room. The 
little boys were sleeping peacefully, and the mother 
bent down and kissed them fondly, with a choking 



The Crown Prince's Brutality 159 

sensation in her throat, after which she shpped 
down the back staircase, unlocked the door leading 
into the courtyard, and made her way through the 
dark streets to the railway station. Her face, with 
its hideous red mark, was covered with a thick veil, 
and no one could have recognised in this simply- 
attired woman carrying her baggage the future 
Empress of Germany. At the station she was lucky 
enough to find a train starting south, and, having 
taken a second-class ticket, she left Dantzig for an 
unknown destination, not having yet made up her 
mind where and to whom she was to go, whether 
to her brother in Schwerin, or to her mother who, 
she knew, was at that moment staying in Geneva, 
She decided at last to join the latter, knowing she 
would get more sympathy from her than from the 
Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, who, being a reign- 
ing sovereign, was always more or less swayed by 
dynastic considerations, and would try to patch up 
her relations with the Crown Prince, a thing to 
which she was determined never to consent. 

The train stopped at Berlin, and the Princess 
crouched in the corner of her second-class carriage, 
in terrible fear of being recognised. But no one 
thought of looking for her there, though by that 



i6o The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

time the news of her disappearance had already 
reached the Kaiser and he had given strict orders 
to look for and find her, no matter where she might 
be. But, somehow, no one had imagined that the 
runaway Cecile would have the coiu^age to go 
through the capital where she was so well known. 
Therefore, no one sought for her there, and to her 
relief the train went on again, carrying her farther 
and farther from her husband and from her life 
of misery. When she had passed Frankfurt, she 
thought that she was saved, and looked eagerly to- 
wards the moment when she would reach Bale and 
be on Swiss soil. There she meant to telegraph to 
her mother and ask her to come and meet her at 
Lucerne. But fate did not prove kind to her, and 
her hopes were doomed to be cruelly disappointed, 
because at Lindau, the last station before the Swiss 
frontier, the door of the carriage in which she sat 
was rudely opened, and an officer in full uniform 
addressed her by her title of Imperial Highness, 
and asked her in the name of the Emperor to get 
out of the train and honour him with a few mo- 
ments' conversation in her own interest, as other- 
wise he would be obliged to say to her before wit- 
nesses what he would far rather communicate to her 



The Crown Prince's Brutality i6i 

in private. The Princess saw that she was trapped 
and that nothing could avail her; therefore, she 
haughtily stepped out and followed the officer into 
the station, where she sat down on one of the hard 
chairs in the private office of the station-master 
whither she had been conducted and, without ask- 
ing the officer to do the same, simply said that she 
was waiting to hear what he had to tell her. 



CHAPTER XVII 

IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR 

What had happened was as follows : The Crown 
Princess's maid, when she came into her room on the 
morning following the terrible scene which I have 
related, found that her mistress's bed had not been 
slept in, that some clothes of hers were missing, and 
that there was no trace of her. Of course the girl 
raised an alarm, and a search was instituted in the 
grounds of the villa. The servants all knew by 
that time what had taken place between Cecile and 
her husband, and the sympathies of the whole house- 
hold were with the unfortunate woman who had 
been so terribly ill treated. The great fear which 
pervaded the simple minds of these faithful retain- 
ers was that in her despair she had done away with 
herself. The Prince was immediately informed of 
his wife's absence, but this did not seem to trouble 
him, because the only remark he made was to 
the effect that he was very glad to be rid of the 
creature. The Emperor, however, to whom the 

162 



In the Name of the Emperor 163 

news had been telegraphed, did not share this opin- 
ion, because he immediately gave orders to make a 
thorough search for his daughter-in-law, and after 
a few hours it was ascertained that a lady deeply 
veiled had left Dantzig by an early train on the 
morning following the last exposition of brutality 
on the part of the Crown Prince. After this it be- 
came relatively easy to follow Cecile to Lindau, and 
the Kaiser sent orders to the General in command 
of the garrison of the town to proceed to the rail- 
way station, stop the Princess, and send her back 
to Berlin under escort. 

The officer in question did not in the least relish 
the mission with which he had been entrusted, but 
he had no choice except to obey, and accordingly he 
presented himself before Cecile, as has been already 
related, and with great caution informed her of the 
commands which had been laid upon him, asking 
her at the same time by what train it would please 
her to return to Berlin. The first instinct of the 
Princess was to refuse to return. She showed the 
General the red marks upon her cheek, and asked 
him whether he could wonder that she preferred 
anything, even death, to living again with the man 
who had so far forgotten himself as to ill treat her 



164 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

in such an abominable fashion. The poor officer 
was entirely of her opinion, but he had to perform 
his duty, and therefore he could only urge Cecile 
to try and forgive, and advised her to place herself 
under the protection of the Kaiser, who no doubt 
would be able to prevent a repetition of such out- 
rages. But in the meanwhile she could do nothing 
but return to her own home, where her children and 
her household awaited her, and would receive her 
with all the respect due to her position as heiress 
to the Throne. The Princess pleaded to be al- 
lowed at least to meet her mother, but she was told 
that this request of hers had been foreseen, and that 
the Emperor had decreed that imder no pretext 
whatever was she to be allowed to cross the Swiss 
border, and that if she persisted in doing so, she was 
to be prevented by force from accomphshing her 
intention. 

Cecile bitterly regretted then that she had not 
telegraphed from Frankfurt or some other place 
to the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg to come and 
meet her in Bale or elsewhere. She had been afraid 
of doing so, but her very precaution in that respect 
had proved her undoing. She saw that she was 
trapped, therefore thought that the best thing she 



In the Name of the Emperor 165 

could do was to exercise some diplomacy, so she 
told the General that she was ready to obey the 
orders of the Emperor, but that she was thoroughly 
tired and worn out, therefore she asked him to allow 
her first to go and rest for a few hours at an hotel 
in the town, after which she would start on her re- 
turn journey. She also begged the Emperor to 
send her her maid and some clothes, as she did not 
care to appear before him in the dilapidated condi- 
tion to which her two days' uninterrupted journey 
had reduced her. 

General von X. was but too delighted to grant 
the Princess's request. He conducted her with 
great ceremony to the best hotel Lindau could boast 
of, promised her that he would immediately wire to 
Berlin transmitting her request to the Kaiser, and 
begged her meanwhile to rest quietly, and try to 
sleep off her fatigue. He asked her at the same 
time not to be offended if in compliance with the 
commands he had received he put a sentry before 
her door, merely, he hastened to say, as a measure 
of precaution to prevent any one disturbing her. 
As for her meals, he thought that she would most 
probably prefer having them served in her own 
apartment rather than in the dining-room. Cecile 



i66 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

did not reply. She knew that she was a prisoner 
and that nothing remained for her to do except to 
submit. But she made up her mind to try, at least, 
to notify her mother of what had happened. So 
when the chambermaid of the hotel entered her 
room to make the bed she rushed up to her, and 
putting into her hand a thousand-mark bill and a 
telegram she had contrived to write, she begged 
her to send the latter to its destination, promising 
her another thousand marks if it reached the Grand 
Duchess of Mecklenburg that same day. 

The woman could not resist the enormous bribe, 
and she despatched the message, which found Anas- 
tasia Michaylowna in Geneva, where she still re- 
sided, and, as may be imagined, considerably dis- 
turbed her. 

She was a very energetic woman, who quickly 
made up her mind what to do in a case of emer- 
gency. An hour after her daughter's appeal had 
been put into her hands she was in a train, and a 
few hours later arrived in Lindau, where she had 
herself driven to the hotel where the Crown Prin- 
cess was eagerly awaiting her. Brushing past the 
manager of the establishment, who did not know 
who this unexpected guest was, she rushed upstairs, 



In the Name of the Emperor 167 

but there found herself confronted by the sentry 
that General von X. had stationed at Cecile's door, 
who not only challenged her, but declared that 
if she tried to enter the room, he would use 
force to prevent her from doing so. The Grand 
Duchess was not a Romanoff for nothing. She 
seized the soldier by the arm and pushed him aside, 
caUing as she did so her daughter's name as loudly 
as she could. The Princess recognised her mother's 
voice and immediately opened her door, when the 
two women fell into each other's arms. 

General von X. was advised of what had taken 
place, but he was helpless. In spite of the orders 
of his Sovereign he did not well see how he could 
use violence towards ladies, one of whom was the 
wife of his future Emperor, whilst the other was 
the cousin of the Czar of Russia. The only thing 
he could do was to wire again to Berlin for in- 
structions. 

These were not long in coming. The Kaiser gave 
directions for the Crown Princess to be brought 
back to Berlin as soon as the two ladies-in-waiting 
whom he was sending to escort her should have 
reached Lindau. As for the Grand Duchess of 
Mecklenburg, she was under no condition whatso- 



i68 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

ever to be permitted to accompany her daughter, 
and General von X. was further told to try to do 
what he could to induce her to return to Switzer- 
land immediately. 

This, however, was easier said than done. Anas- 
tasia Michaylowna refused to move. She locked 
herself up with the Crown Princess, declaring that 
she would not leave her, and in her turn she tele- 
graphed to her son, the reigning Grand Duke of 
Mecklenburg, telling him to what condition his sis- 
ter had been reduced. She also sent a message to 
William II, asking him whether he could tolerate 
the idea of the Crown Prince laying his hands 
upon his wife and nearly killing her under his blows. 
She added that she would make it her business to 
acquaint all the other European Sovereigns with 
what had happened, and also ask the Czar to inter- 
fere in the interests of his cousin. Of course, the 
latter could, not go on living with the man who had 
treated her in such an infamous manner, and she 
hoped that the Emperor would arrange a separa- 
tion between them, in which the Crown Princess 
would be left in possession of her children, who, 
added Anastasia Michaylowna, would certainly be 



In the Name of the Emperor 169 

better brought up by their mother than by a father 
to whom the decencies of life were unknown. 

This message did not contribute to allay the 
wrath of William II. He was, however, helpless 
in a certain sense; so he said nothing, but before 
even the household of the Crown Princess had 
reached Lindau, he sent out directions to General 
X. to hasten the departure of the latter, and to com- 
pel her to start without a moment's delay. He fur- 
ther added that she was not to be left for one single 
moment alone, and that if she tried to write a let- 
ter, no matter to whom, it was to be immediately 
confiscated and sent on to him instead of to the ad- 
dressee. 

But the Crown Princess was far too wise to write 
to any one. She had told her mother aU that she 
had to tell, and after many promises from Anas- 
tasia Michaylowna to move heaven and earth to de- 
liver her from the detestable husband to whom she 
was bound, she started on her return journey to 
Berlin. The Grand Duchess was not allowed to 
accompany her daughter to the railway station, but 
had to part from her at the hotel, and with two 
ladies-in-waiting and two maids in the same car- 
riage with her, and three officers located in the next 



170 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

compartment who had instructions not to permit 
her to get out, the young wife of the Crown Prince 
of Germany started on her new journey to BerUn, 
a State prisoner. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

YEARS OF SADNESS 

Cecile during the whole of her return journey 
to the mockery of a home, which was all that she 
had to look forward to, cried bitterly. For one 
thing she did not at all know what was to become 
of her, whether she would be kept a prisoner in some 
castle, or sent back to Dantzig, where probably she 
would be treated by her husband even more bru- 
tally than before. The thought of having once 
more to meet and to live under the same roof as the 
Crown Prince was inexpressibly painful to her, and 
she also felt frightened at what the Kaiser would 
have to say to her, being perfectly well aware that 
he must have felt furious at her audacity in running 
away. There was still a red mark on her cheek, 
and she was glad of it, because she could at least 
show her father-in-law the traces of his son's cruelty 
and ask him whether he approved of such treat- 
ment. She prepared for a fight in which she knew 
beforehand she would be beaten, but which she was 

171 



172 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

none the less determined to carry on, if only as a 
means of justification for the grave step which she 
had taken in forsaking her husband's house. She 
was therefore greatly surprised when she reached 
Berlin to find the Emperor and the Empress and 
her own two eldest Httle bovs awaitins: her on the 
platform of the station, and to be tenderly em- 
braced by them, as if she had done nothing at all to 
displease them. The Sovereigns accompanied her to 
her Berlin Palace, which had been opened and made 
ready to receive her, and she was informed that it 
had been decided she should remain there for some 
time, under the protection of her parents-in-law, 
and have with her her small family. What had 
happened was the following: William II had been 
made aware of the strong current of sympathy 
which existed between the pubhc and the Crown 
Princess, as well as of the general condemnation 
passed upon her husband. Vague rumours that she 
had left him in the dead of night had been cir- 
culating, but no one knew exactly what had oc- 
curred, and it had been thought advisable to let 
people remain in ignorance concerning the whole 
episode. It was given out that the Princess Cecde 
had been spending a few days with her mother. 



Years of Sadness 173 

having been summoned to her unexpectedly in or- 
der to discuss certain financial family matters, and, 
to show that she had done nothing against the 
wishes of the Kaiser, he had decided to receive her 
not only with pomp and ceremony, but also with 
affection, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the 
world, that was never to know the disgraceful truth. 
The Berlin season being just at hand, the presence 
of the Crown Princess in the capital would be easily 
explained, and the Emperor told her that she was 
to go about and show herself in pubUc just as much 
as she had done before, and perhaps even a little 
more. 

He said to her all this in a long conversation 
which they had together on the day following her 
return (a conversation during which she wept pro- 
fusely and was soothed only by the promise that in 
future she would not be subjected to such treat- 
ment as she had been compelled to put up with), 
that the Crown Prince would be told, had in fact 
already been told, that if he once more forgot him- 
self to the extent of striking his wife he would be 
immediately locked up in a fortress to remain there 
for an indefinite time. In communicating this de- 
cision to the unfortunate Cecile, the Kaiser added 



174 The Disillusions of a Cro\\Ti Princess 

that she had been very vrrong not to have came to 
him immediately, becauir :: ~.^s. his duty as head of 
his House to see that it was not disgraced by the 
actions of any of its members, and that he consid- 
ered it a personal affront that she had ded to her 
mother, instead of asking him to interfere. He 
showed himself in general very kind and affection- 
ate to the Princess, whom he hsd always hked, and 
during the months that foil:"- - ne saw a great deal 
of her and tried to get her to consider bim as her 
best friend. She was bright and witty, and per- 
haps the fact that she was so different from the 
Kaiserin and all the German Princesses he had 
been accustomed to meet had endeared her to bim. 
She amused him by her ready wit and the rapidity 
with which she grasped at once the humorous side 
of things. The Kaiserin had never possessed a 
sense of humour and had always looked upon the 
serious and dull side of life, so it was just possible 
that WiUlam II had become bored by the goodness 
of his consort and was not sorry to find in his own 
family circle a person capable of appreciating a 
joke, or noticing the funny incidents that took place 
around her. So Cecile's escapade, which according 
to her expectations was to have brought her ioto 



Years of Sadness 175 

eternal disgrace with the Emperor, had, on the con- 
trary, strongly influenced him in her favour, and 
gave her quite a privileged position with him. He 
even took to consulting her in different matters 
which the prudish feelings of the Empress would 
never have allowed him to discuss with her, and 
very soon his pretty daughter-in-law became such 
a favourite with him that the world began to say 
she could twist him around her little finger, in a way 
no woman had ever done before, and that he had 
grown to care for her almost as much as he did for 
his own daughter, the wilful Princess Victoria 
Louise, who since her birth had ruled with a rod of 
iron her whole family, including her father, mother 
and brothers, and whose word was law in the Ho- 
henzoUern family. 

It was this sister-in-law who had done more than 
any one else to bring about the change that had tak- 
en place in the feelings of the Emperor towards the 
Princess Cecile. The two girls were extremely 
fond of one another and had been good friends ever 
since the marriage of the Crown Prince, when Vic- 
toria Louise had been a long-legged, lanky child 
who, spoiled and petted by everybody, had always 
had her own way in life, and had never troubled 



176 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

about others. The Crown Princess had taken a lik- 
ing for her from the first, and had evinced quite a 
maternal interest in her, hoping she might one day 
be useful to her and help her in the choice of a hus- 
band, so as to save her from her own disappoint- 
ments and sorrows, and Victoria or Sissy, as she 
used to be called in her family circle, had also be- 
come warmly attached to her elder brother's wife, 
upon whom she looked as a dainty little fairy in her 
elegant and smart Paris clothes, so different from 
anything ever worn in Berhn. Later on, when the 
little Princess had reached womanhood, she came 
to appreciate Cecile for other things than her lovely 
French dresses and she learned to understand the 
sweetness of her nature and the gentleness of her 
disposition. When the day of love dawned for her it 
was to the Crown Princess that she confided her 
feehngs of affection for the young son of the Duke 
of Cumberland, whom she feared her father would 
never allow her to marry; and it was Cecile who 
pleaded her cause, uselessly as it turned out, be- 
cause William II was but too glad to agree to a 
match that would put an end to a family feud that 
had lasted for almost half a century; so he did 
all he could to promote it, unknown to his family, 



Years of Sadness 177 

out of fear that his obstinate little daughter would 
refuse a suitor whom she believed was chosen for 
her and not by her. In the conspiracy that had at 
last brought about the engagement of Victoria 
Louise with the future Duke of Brunswick, the 
Crown Princess had played a prominent part, and 
she had been the good fairy, thanks to whom the 
young people had grown to understand each other 
and to discover that they could only be happy if 
permitted to marry. 

Altogether the years which followed upon the 
Dantzig incident were perhaps the happiest in the 
married life of the Crown Princess of Germany, 
and she was to look back upon them with a certain 
tender satisfaction, remembering that it was the 
only time when she had been able more or less to 
do what she liked, and when she had not been sub- 
jected to her husband's tyranny, as heretofore. The 
Crown Prince and she had met in Berlin three or 
four months after Cecile's triumphant return to the 
capital, and both tacitly avoided any reference 
to the events that had brought about their tem- 
porary separation. Frederick WiUiam was of 
course furious with his wife, but the Kaiser had 
made it a point to speak a few words of hard truth 



178 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

to him, so that he had no choice but to obey his fa- 
ther's commands, and to show at least in pubhc 
some degree of politeness and deference for the 
Crown Princess. They were just then very much 
in evidence before the public, because it had been 
decided by the Emperor that they were to enter- 
tain on a greater scale than they had done hitherto, 
and he allowed them a large sum of money for the 
purpose. People who knew the Kaiser well said 
at the time that he wished to see his son take his 
proper place in society- and fill it as it had never 
been filled before. He wished him also to acquire 
better manners and to lose some of that arrogance 
which was one of the most prominent traits of his 
altogether unpleasant character, and he thought 
that knowledge and experience of the world might 
bring about this much-desired change. Cecile on 
her side was fond of entertaining, and she had very 
naturally fallen into the position of leader of Ber- 
lin society, a position her mother-in-law was no 
longer able to hold on account of her faihng health 
and her lack of taste for the festivities of the gay 
world that looked to her for its amusement and 
pleasures. The Crown Princess had become vir- 
tually, if not nominally, the first lady in the land, 



Years of Sadness 179 

and she liked it. On the other hand, people had 
grown fond of her and admired her pleasant, smil- 
ing, amiable face, and the great dignity of her whole 
demeanour. As for the Royal family, they respect- 
ed her and felt thankful to her for having controlled 
her feelings and been wise enough to overlook her 
husband's iniquities. Altogether her position had 
grown quite tolerable and even pleasant in certain 
respects, when suddenly the catastrophe took place 
which was to change the face of the world as well 
as the whole future life of Cecile of Mecklenburg 
and transform her from the heiress of a great throne 
into an outcast, drifting alone on the ocean of ex- 
istence, and deprived of status, name, fortune, and 
all that she had enjoyed for more than fourteen 
years. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ROYALTY'S LAST PAGEANT 

The 24th of May of the year 1914 was a great 
day in Berhn. On that date were celebrated the 
nuptials of the only daughter of the Kaiser with 
the son of the Duke of Cumberland, the dispos- 
sessed pretender to the Hanoverian throne. In 
honour of the occasion most of the Sovereigns of 
Europe had assembled, among others the King and 
Queen of England and the Czar of Russia, who 
were closely allied to the bride and bridegroom, the 
latter's mother. Duchess Thyra of Cumberland, be- 
ing the youngest sister of the widowed Queen Alex- 
andra and of the Dowager Empress Marie of Rus- 
sia. Everything that could be devised in honour 
of the occasion had been done to add to its pomp 
and solemnity, and it was really the day of the su- 
preme triumph of the Kaiser, who saw himself play- 
ing host to the two mightiest monarchs in the world 
and receiving them together at his court. The pres- 
ents showered on the bride were of fabulous value 

180 




Photograph, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

The Daughter and Son-in-Law of the Ex-Kaisi:r 
( The DfKE and Duchess of r.KiwswicK ) 



Royalty's Last Pageant i8i 

and comprised, among other things, the family 
stones of the Dukes of Brunswick which had been 
confiscated by Prussia when it had conquered Han- 
over, and which had reposed in a safe in Berhn 
until they were taken out and offered as a wedding 
gift to the Princess Victoria Louisa. Among them 
was a diamond tiara, which was considered one of 
the handsomest in the world, and which had formed 
a part of the dowry of the unfortunate Queen So- 
phy Dorothy of Hanover, who had ended her days, 
a lonely prisoner, in the castle of Ahlden in Prus- 
sia. Some of its stones had been brought over from 
France to Germany by the Queen's mother, this 
lovely Eleonore d'Olbreuse who had won the heart 
of the Duke of Zell and been raised by him to the 
rank of his Duchess, in spite of the violent opposi- 
tion of his whole family. Then there were the fa- 
mous pearls that had once belonged to Queen Char- 
lotte of England, the consort of George III, which 
had caused such distress of mind to Queen Victoria 
because, on the accession of the Duke of Cumber- 
land to the throne of Hanover, the law had allowed 
him to take them with him to his German kingdom. 
The Queen had been of the opinion that these pearls 
ought to remain in England, and be added to the 



i82 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

jewels owned by the British Crown. But the 
courts of law before which her uncle had carried the 
litigation had given a verdict in his favour, and, 
much to the mortification of the English Sovereign, 
the celebrated pearls had gone out of her possession, 
which was the more bitter that in the first year or 
two of her reign she had often worn them and open- 
ly spoken of her affection for them. When the Prus- 
sians had invaded Hanover in 1866 Queen Marie 
had hastily fled to Vienna, taking the pearls with 
her hidden under her dress, and she had put them 
on upon every occasion that she was expected to 
wear evening dress. When her only son, the Duke 
of Cimiberland, had been wedded to the Princess 
Thyra of Denmark, the pearls of Queen Charlotte 
had been given to her, and now she offered them in 
her turn to her son's bride, much to the joy of the 
Kaiser, who was always pleased when a handsome 
present was made to his beloved daughter. He 
himself had showered splendid gifts upon her, and 
for months before her marriage had spent hours in 
consultation with his Court jewellers in regard to 
the ornaments which he should present to her. In- 
deed, he would have liked nothing better than to 
have given her some of the Crown Jewels, but there 



Royalty's Last Pageant 183 

the Crown Prince had interfered and warned his 
father that he had not the right to dispose of the 
heirlooms of the Hohenzollerns even in favour of a 
Princess of that House. The Prince had never 
cared for the marriage which his sister was con- 
tracting, and angry discussions between them had 
taken place in regard to it, discussions out of which 
Princess Victoria Louise had of course emerged 
triumphant. 

Czar Nicholas II had also brought lovely things 
from St. Petersburg, which he presented to both 
the bride and bridegroom, and rumour, which is al- 
ways busy when Royal weddings are celebrated, 
would have it that his presents had a value of nearly 
one milHon German marks. Altogether the mag- 
nificence displayed by everybody on this memorable 
occasion was a thing to be remembered, especially 
when one takes into consideration that the festivi- 
ties in honour of this marriage were the last which 
were held in the old Royal Castle of Berlin, as well 
as the last at which the Kaiser and the Czar were 
to take part. In that sense they proved the end 
of an era, and the final word in a chapter of the 
history of the world. 

No one among the Royal and Imperial person- 



184 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

ages who surrounded the only daughter of WiUiam 
II on her bridal morning had any inkling of what 
was to follow upon these nuptials in the short space 
of a few months. The speeches made at the wed- 
ding supper all spoke of peace and joy and all 
kinds of good things which people seemed to be 
confident would follow upon this alliance of the 
Guelphs and Hohenzollerns, and none of the fair 
ladies who displayed all their finery with such 
pleasure ever thought that for them, too, the cur- 
tain was about to fall upon their social triumphs, 
their social successes, and their exalted social posi- 
tions. Xot one human being among the crowds who 
filled the rooms of the ancient residence of the 
Prussian Kings had the slightest forewarning that 
the nice comfortable world in which they hved was 
about to disappear for ever and ever. 

The Kaiser had wished his daughter to have quite 
an exceptional trousseau and he had assigned the 
sum of two miUions for the purpose of supplying 
her with clothes, jewels and silver. The Kaiserin, 
always patriotic in everything that she did, had in- 
sisted on this money being spent in Germany, and 
had proceeded to give abundant orders to several 
large firms in Berlin, Breslau and Frankfurt, in 



Royalty's Last Pageant 185 

regard to her daughter's dresses and linen. But, 
partly through the influence of the Crown Princess, 
who in spite of the opposition she had met with had 
remained faithful to her Parisian milliners and tai- 
lors, Victoria Louisa had quite made up her mind 
to get Paquin and Doucet, not to mention more 
modern houses recently become the fashion, to cre- 
ate for her some wonders in the way of underwear 
and ball dresses. The Empress, true to the tradi- 
tions of her own childhood and youth, had insisted 
on the Princess's lingerie being manufactured out 
of the finest batiste and nainsook, but Victoria 
Louise meant to get some of these articles made out 
of crepe de chine and satin, abundantly trimmed 
with lace and embroidery, and with the help of the 
Crown Princess she had persuaded her father to al- 
low her to order some garments of that kind, un- 
known to her mother. She had even extracted from 
him a handsome sum in order to be enabled to do 
it. The dainty little things arrived in due course 
at the Palace, and the Kaiserin almost fainted away 
when she discovered her daughter unpacking them 
with a delight which only added to her own indig- 
nation. She immediately accused Princess Cecile 
of having put into her sister-in-law's head the idea 



1 86 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

of such garments, which, as she indignantly de- 
clared, were only fit for ladies of renowned beauty 
and doubtful reputation, and ever since that time 
her relations with the Crown Princess remained 
strained, not to say hostile. During the numerous 
balls, dinners, concerts, and State performances at 
the Opera which had enlivened the days of the Roy- 
al guests who had come to grace with their presence 
this wedding of such unsurpassable interest, it had 
been noticed that the Crown Princess looked pale 
and almost worn, and that there were dark circles 
under her eyes that spoke of great fatigue or con- 
siderable anxiety. The fact was that Cecile was 
feehng keenly the impending separation between 
her and her sister-in-law, and that, besides, she had 
been frightened by certain remarks made by her 
husband, remarks which seemed to indicate that he 
expected grave events to break out almost imme- 
diately after the nuptials of his sister. Now these 
events could only be of one kind, because war was 
practically the only thing which interested him, a 
war in the course of which he could win the laurels 
he was always thinking of, and which he reckoned 
were absolutely bound, sooner or later, to come 
within his reach. Cecile had heard from various 



Royalty's Last Pageant 187 

sources that enormous preparations were being 
made by Germany for this war, which the General 
Staff seemed to think unavoidable, and she felt an 
intense revolt shake her whole being when she lis- 
tened to the professions of friendship and devotion 
which were showered upon the Czar by her father- 
in-law, who, she knew for a fact, was all the time 
thinking of the day when he would be able to draw 
the sword against him and destroy him and his 
realm. 

But all the while she had to keep still and not 
say a word. She was the Crown Princess of Ger- 
many, and as such she had lost the right to warn 
even her own blood relations of all that was being 
planned against them; she had to go about smil- 
ing whilst her heart was racked with the thought 
that she was playing a hateful comedy, and that she 
was lending herself to what she knew but too well 
was going to be the greatest perfidy ever recorded 
in history. 

When the Czar came to wish her sfood-bye pre- 
vious to his return to St. Petersburg, she could not 
restrain herself, and when he kissed her hand she 
whispered into his ear the one word "Beware." 
Nicholas II did not understand her, and exclaimed 



i88 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

in surprise: ''Beware? of whom, and of what? 
What do you mean?" The reply was heard by the 
Crown Prince, who upbraided his wife with great 
violence, teUing her that she ought to remember 
who she was and the position she occupied, and the 
Kaiser, to whom the matter was referred, also scold- 
ed her for her intemperance of language, adding 
that it was not her place to judge what was being 
done by his own orders, that the fact of add- 
ing to Germany's armaments did not mean that 
Germany was about to go to war, and that even if 
she were compelled to do so, she certainly would not 
attack Russia, with whose Imperial family the Hoh- 
enzollerns were so intimately connected. Cecile did 
not reply. She had her own ideas on that subject, 
but she knew herself to be so entirely powerless that 
it was of no use to protest against what she could 
neither help nor prevent. The poor woman was 
already feeling the approach of the storm of which 
she was to become one of the most pathetic and in- 
nocent victims. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE BEGINNING OF THE END 

The marriage of the young Duchess of Bruns- 
wick was, though she knew it not, the last great 
official occasion upon which Cecile of Mecklenburg 
was to appear before the public as the Consort of 
the Heir Apparent to the German Throne. The 
winter which followed upon it did not see her in 
Berlin for any length of time, though she gave one 
or two entertainments in her Palace there, but it 
was evident that she was out of sorts, and greatly 
worried by something. Busybodies who make it a 
point of knowing everything assured each other that 
she was troubled about her husband, the Crown 
Prince being then engaged in one of the numerous 
love intrigues which seemed to please him so much ; 
and they pitied her and said that it was very sad 
that such a nice little woman should be so shame- 
fully neglected by the one man who ought to appre- 
ciate her and her charm and virtues. But it was not 
the conduct of her consort which tormented the 

189 



190 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

Crown Princess; she had grown used to his mode 
of living, and she despised him so completely that 
nothing he might do could affect her. There were 
other preoccupations which filled her days and her 
nights with anxiety and apprehension, preoccupa- 
tions of a political nature that caused her to tremble 
for the future of her children, those boys born to 
such brilHant destinies who were to lose all that they 
ought to have possessed. 

Events were to prove that the Crown Princess 
had not been mistaken in her fears in regard to 
what lay in store for her and for her family. War 
broke out, or rather was declared by Germany, 
without the least provocation on the part of the 
people on whom she threw herself like a ravenous 
wolf in quest of prey. Amidst the greatest ex- 
citement Berlin had ever known, the Kaiser made 
his famous speech to his people, in which he declared 
that he would no longer consider pohtical parties 
but look upon all his subjects as united Germans. 
The crowds, always fickle and apt to be led by false 
enthusiasm, cheered him vociferously, and then 
started towards the Palace of the Crown Prince to 
renew there their manifestations of so-called loyaltj'^ 
to that House of Hohenzollern from whom it was 



The Beginning of the End 191 

just then expecting so many great things and deeds. 
Cecile had to show herself pale and trembling to the 
multitude that acclaimed her with immense enthusi- 
asm. Her own heart was breaking, but she played 
the game, and the old blood of the Romanoffs as- 
serted itself once more in the dignity with which 
she bore herself in those trying hours. 

It must not be forgotten that the Crown Princess 
had been brought up in France; that she had en- 
joyed in that coimtry the most generous of hos- 
pitaUties, and that she was closely connected with 
the Russian Imperial House. It is easy, therefore, 
to imagine her feelings when she found herself the 
official enemy of all those whom she had loved and 
respected. Even her relations with her own mother 
(which had been so difficult to maintain because of 
the Kaiser's dislike for the Grand Duchess Anas- 
tasia) were about to be severed, because the latter 
had immediately declared that she renounced her 
title, position and income as widowed Grand Duch- 
ess of Mecklenburg, and would henceforth only 
consider and call herself a Princess of the Imperial 
House of Romanoff. This meant that Cecile could 
not whilst the war lasted even write to her, far less 



192 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

see her. It may be imagined how painful this must 
have been for her. 

During those first few days which followed upon 
the declaration of war, small incidents occurred al- 
most continually to remind her of her complete 
helplessness. For instance, when the Dowager Em- 
press of Russia was stopped in Berlin, on her way 
back from England to St. Petersburg, the Crown 
Princess implored the Kaiser to permit her to go 
and greet her aunt and put herself at her disposal 
during the trying hours which she had to spend in 
the German capital. The Emperor, who from the 
very beginning of the war had hoped to persuade 
the Czar to conclude with him a separate peace, did 
not object, and graciously signified his consent. 
But the Crown Prince, when he heard of it, abso- 
lutely forbade his wife to go to the Silesian Rail- 
road station where the train of the Dowager Em- 
press was detained, and in order to be sure that she 
would obey him, he locked her up in her bedroom 
and only released her after he heard that Marie 
Feodorowna had left Berlin. This was hard enough 
to bear, but Cecile was to be reminded of her utter 
helplessness in a far more bitter manner. Her own 
cousin, Princes Irene of Russia, the only daughter 



The Beginning of the End 193 

of her mother's younger brother, the Grand Duke 
Alexander Michaylowitsch, happened to be in Ber- 
hn with her husband, Prince Fehx Youssoupoff 
(who was to acquire such notoriety later on through 
his shooting of the too famous Raspoutine) and his 
parents. They were detained by special order of 
the Kaiser, who wished to keep the whole Yous- 
soupoff family as war prisoners in Germany. 
Princess Irene telephoned to Cecile, whom she 
knew, of course, very well, asking her whether she 
could not come to her help. The Crown Princess 
at once replied that she would do all she could 
and would come to see the Youssoupoffs as soon 
as she had spoken with the Emperor. She fully ex- 
pected that William II would listen to her entreat- 
ies, and accord her the first real favour she had ever 
asked of him. Great was her surprise and morti- 
fication when he answered her that this business did 
not concern her, and that he would most certainly 
not change one word of the orders he had issued in 
regard to the YoussoupoiF family. He also told 
her that if she attempted to go and see them, he 
would have her dragged out of her carriage, even 
if he had to resort to violence. Cecile could only 
sadly inform the Princess Irene by telephone that 



194 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

she could do nothing for her; but at the same time 
she contrived to inform the Spanish Ambassador of 
her cousin's phght and he managed to secure for the 
latter and for her relatives the necessary authorisa- 
tion to leave the German capital in the same train 
which carried off to the Danish frontier the Rus- 
sian Ambassador, Mr. Swerbeieff, and his staff. 
Happily for the poor Crown Princess, her family 
never suspected what she had done, otherwise 
trouble of a most serious nature would have ensued 
for her. She had not the right to show herself com- 
passionate, even in regard to her own people, and 
the Crown Prince as well as the Emperor were de- 
termined that she should know it. 

This is not a story of the war. It is therefore use- 
less to speak about it, except in so far as it affected 
the life of the Crown Princess of Germany, whose 
position became so trying that sometimes she prayed 
to God to take her out of a life which had proved 
so bitter for her. She bore herself with great tact, 
effaced herself entirely before the Kaiserin, who 
immediately took in hand the direction of the Red 
Cross; and though she visited hospitals and wards 
where wounded soldiers were being treated, she 
avoided making any pubhc appearance which might 



The Beginning of the End 195 

have drawn on her person the attention of the 
crowds, which she avoided as much as she could. 
Her conduct was quite irreproachable, but it did 
not please the German people nor the HohenzoUem 
family, with whom she became extremely unpopu- 
lar, and who accused her of being at heart "a Rus- 
sian" instead of the German Hausfrau, whom she 
was supposed to personify. They could not for- 
give her for her intervention in favour of some 
French and Russian prisoners of war who had been 
shamefully ill-treated and who, thanks to her ef- 
forts, were at last transferred to another concentra- 
tion camp, the commander of which proved to be a 
more humane man than the ofBcer under whose su- 
pervision they had spent the first months of their 
captivity. And one of her sisters-in-law, the Prin- 
cess Eitel Fritz, having caught her one day in tears 
as a consequence of having read in some newspaper 
an account of that terrible battle of Tanneberg 
where over two hundred thousand Russians per- 
ished in one day, drowned by Hindenburg in the 
Mazurian lakes and marshes, went about saying 
that Cecile spent her time weeping over the mis- 
fortunes of the enemies of Germany, and that she 
did not care in the very least for her own com- 



196 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

patriots or for what they suffered. Of course this 
was a libel, but then sometimes the judgment of 
history also is founded on libel, and it certainly 
played a great part in all the events that were to 
follow, and that ended in the Crown Princess at 
last making up her mind to try to win back her 
liberty and bring against her husband the action 
for divorce she had wished to begin so many years 
before. 

When the Crown Prince left for the front, his 
wife with their two eldest boys accompanied him to 
the railroad station. The children were wildly ex- 
cited and the Prince himself quite nervous with sup- 
pressed emotion. He was so entirely carried away 
by his feelings that for once he forgot to make some 
disagreeable remark to Cecile, but took leave of her 
with affection, going so far as to take her in his 
arms and kiss her in a demonstrative manner before 
the crowds gathered on the platform of the station 
to see him take his departure. He did not return 
to Berlin for two years, not even when his young- 
est child and first little girl was born, but the ru- 
mours of the kind of life he was leading reached the 
ears of his unfortunate wife and proved to her once 
more that she was outraged and betrayed at every 




Photograph, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

The Ex-Kaiserin, the Ex-Crown Princess 
AND Her Little Daughter 



The Beginning of the End 197 

step. She realised more than ever that she had 
ceased to count in the life of this man who, even in 
presence of danger, of death, and of all the other 
horrors of war, had but one thought, namely, to 
amuse himself in the most disreputable manner pos- 
sible, in company with his officers and in the pres- 
ence of his soldiers, to whom he conveyed the im- 
pression that nothing was sacred for him, and that 
he treated family ties as well as all the other de- 
cencies of life with equal indifference. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE FALL OF THE COLOSSUS 

The war dragged on through three weary years, 
and at the expiration of that time the end still 
seemed as far off as ever. The Crown Prince, after 
the failure of his attacks on Verdun, had come back 
to Berhn for a few days, where angry scenes took 
place between him and his wife. Cecile by that 
time had had her eyes opened as to the aims of 
"Kulturf' as the Germans understood it, and she 
received her husband with feelings of disgust, com- 
bined with contempt. Apart from his private con- 
duct, about which too many rumours had reached 
her to leave her any illusions as to the moral worth 
of a man who, to all his other defects, had added 
that of cowardice, ^he had been too profoundly 
shocked by the cruelties and atrocities practised by 
the German armies in the field not to speak openly 
about what she thought concerning the brutality 
with which the war was conducted. Had she been 
free to do what she hked she would most probably 

198 



The Fall of the Colossus 199 

have gone abroad to some neutral country — Spain, 
Sweden or Switzerland — and remained there until 
the storm had blown over ; but of course she would 
not have been allowed to do this as it would have 
been tantamount to a desertion of the sacred cause 
of which she was supposed to be one of the most 
prominent representatives. So she had to school 
herself to bear in silence the burden which had been 
placed upon her shoulders, the weight of which op- 
pressed her so much, and to keep still whilst her 
soul yearned to cry out its agony. She did the 
little she could to help the victims of the war in 
other countries than Germany, but she worked in 
silence, and never spoke of her attempts to relieve 
the misery of her neighbours. 

One day the news was brought to her of the atro- 
cious execution of Miss Edith Cavell, which stirred 
her profoundly. In her indignation she was about 
to cast prudence to the winds and write to the 
Kaiser, who was then at headquarters, to express 
her revolt and indignation at the foul deed, when 
a letter was put into her hands. It bore a Swiss 
post-mark, and contained only a few words: "Two 
other women, the Countess de Belleville, and a 
school-teacher, Mademoiselle Thullier, have been 



200 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

sentenced to death together with Miss Cavell. So 
far they have not been executed. Won't you, in 
remembrance of the Sphinx, make an effort to save 
their lives?" 

This was all. There was no signature and no in- 
dication as to who could have penned this strange 
epistle, but Cecile did not need to ask the writer's 
name. She knew but too well who he was, and she 
experienced a strange pleasure in thinking that at 
least he was in Europe and near enough to be able 
to reach her, if she ever found herself in danger — 
which sooner or later would probably be her fate. 
She immediately sat down, and, instead of writing 
an angry letter to her father-in-law, she penned a 
humble and imploring epistle, begging of him to 
grant her the lives of these two women as a reward 
for what she had had to endure at the hands of the 
Crown Prince, and ending with the words : "I have 
never asked you for ami:hing since this iniquitous 
war began, but now I entreat you to let feelings of 
mercy take the upper hand of what you and others 
consider justice, but which I fear the civilised world 
will term murder, and not to send these two ladies 
to their death. There has been already so much 
blood spilt that surelj^ the shedding of this innocent 



The Fall of the Colossus 201 

blood could be avoided. Please, please consider my 
request, and do not refuse it, if you really care for 
me as you have so often said you did." 

For once the heart of William II was touched, 
and the Countess of Belleville and Mile. Thullier 
had their sentences commuted to long terms of im- 
prisonment. The appeal of the Crown Princess' 
friend had not been made in vain. 

Then, at last, occurred the expected collapse. 
The vast war machine which Germany had taken 
so much trouble to build up fell down and broke 
into small pieces. A wave of revolution swept the 
country, just as it had swept over Russia, and the 
German Empire disappeared from the map of Eu- 
rope, carrying away amidst its ruins the proud dy- 
nasty of the HohenzoUerns. 

The Crown Princess was not at all surprised. 
She had expected something of the kind; still, the 
abdication of her father-in-law came as a shock to 
her. She had not believed that he would throw up 
the game instead of playing it to the bitter end. She 
had thought that he would commit suicide rather 
than surrender. Now she found that he even lacked 
sufficient dignity and courage to put an end to him- 
self, and that he preferred exile in Holland to the 



202 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

grave in which his reputation in histor^^ had already 
been buried. For her, with the blood of the Ro- 
manoffs running in her veins, it appeared incred- 
ible. When her cousin the Czar had given up his 
crown, she had only pitied him, because his weak- 
ness of character ^was well known to her, but the 
Kaiser had appeared as a strong man in her eyes, 
and she had not imagined he would not try to resist 
the waves of the current that had swept away most 
of the European djniasties. Of the Crown Prince 
she never thought at all, she had never expected he 
would die "game to the last," and besides, his ac- 
tions had become absolutely indifferent to her. But 
as regards the Kaiser, she had still nursed some illu- 
sions, and the idea that he would not give a thought 
as to what would become of his family, children and 
grandchildren had never occurred to her. 

She remained in Potsdam all through the first 
dark days of the Revolution. No one interfered 
with her, and she was left quite alone in the Marble 
Palace, as it was called, with her children, most of 
her attendants having forsaken her at the first 
symptoms of the coming storm. The Kaiserin, 
who it seems was the only person who had been 
aware of the intentions of William II, was busy 



The Fall of the Colossus 203 

packing as many of her things as she could, in the 
way of jewels, plate, furs, laces, and other precious 
possessions, in order to take them away with her. 
The greater part of the Crown Jewels had already 
been put into a place of safety abroad, or confided 
to the care of the Queen of Sweden, the first cousin 
of William II, who happened to be in Carlsruhe 
with her mother, the Dowager jGrand Duchess of 
Baden, when the armistice was signed, and who 
had gladly accepted the mission of taking care of 
her relatives' diamonds and pearls. But there were 
many other things which the conservative German 
spirit of the last German Empress refused to leave 
to the people who would occupy the place which 
had been hers for so many years. She consequently 
set to work to pack up all that she thought she 
might carry away without arousing the suspicions 
of the representatives of the new German govern- 
ment, who of course would claim as its own most 
of the fortune of its former rulers. The placid 
temperament of Augusta Victoria did not go fur- 
ther than the necessity to save all that could be 
saved, in the material sense of that word, of the 
many treasures which had owned her for their mis- 
tress; and the loss of her throne had not affected 



204 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

her so much as the possible and eventual loss of her 
wardrobe. When her daughters-in-law crowded 
around her, and tried to offer her their sympathy, 
she met their advances quietly, but had plainly in- 
dicated in doing so that she preferred being left to 
herself, and even the sight of her little grandson, 
the eldest child of the Crown Prince and Crown 
Princess, had failed to move her. She did not seem 
to realise that this unexpected Revolution which 
had broken out so suddenly had robbed him of the 
throne to which he had been bom. 

Cecile of Mecklenburg, on the contrary, took 
that phase of the question most acutely to heart. 
For herself she did not care, but rather felt relieved 
at the thought that considerations of rank would 
no longer compel her to go on playing a comedy 
which had become so irksome to her. But the 
thought of her children, deprived of their birth- 
right, was a very bitter one for her maternal heart. 
She tried to explain to them the gravity of the 
events which were taking place, but she understood 
very well how difficult it would be for their young 
minds to grasp that after having been so much the 
Hohenzollems had sunk deeper than they had ever 
been able to rise in the days gone by. 



The Fall of the Colossus 205 

Prompted by her duty, however, she suggested to 
the Crown Prince that she should join him in Hol- 
land at the time that the Kaiserin took her depar- 
ture from Potsdam for that lonely castle of Amer- 
ongen near Utrecht, where William II had found 
a refuge. But Frederick William did not care in 
the least to see his wife again ; in fact, her presence 
in the place of exile where he had been sent might 
seriously interfere with many of his pleasures. He 
therefore telegraphed to her that she had better 
stay where she was, and that he did not want her to 
join him. And at about that same time, he wrote 
to an important firm of radical lawyers in Berlin 
asking them whether they could not possibly ar- 
range matters so as to procure him a divorce from 
his wife. 

The former Crown Princess knew nothing of all 
this. She bravely accepted the change which had 
taken place in her destiny, and tried to shape her 
life in accordance with it. She summoned her house- 
hold and told them that the hour had come when 
they must part, thanking them for their past serv- 
ices, and distributing among them small souvenirs 
in remembrance of the years which they had spent 
with her. Then she proceeded to introduce several 



2o6 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

changes in her manner of living, sold her horses, 
carriages and motorcars, dispensed with two out 
of the three tutors and governesses of her children, 
of whose studies she herself assumed the direction, 
and she even dismissed some of her personal maids. 
Most of her splendid gowns she sold, and sent the 
money to the Red Cross. Her jewels she retained 
as a last resource against poverty in the future. And 
after that she waited, for what she knew not yet, 
but felt convinced that nothing could be worse than 
the past, that past which had seemed so brilliant, 
and which had contained so much sorrow. She 
knew that her old Uf e was over, but she did not yet 
dare to think what the new one would be nor of 
what it had in store for her and for her children. 





y < 

M 

« I 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE NECESSITY OF RESIGNATION 

It was a sad and austere life that the woman who 
had believed at one time that she would become the 
Empress of one of the greatest countries in Europe 
found herself compelled to lead. In the first mo- 
ment she felt quite bewildered at the change which 
had taken place in her destiny, and she could hardly 
realise that the future would require almost super- 
human efforts on her part to be endurable. Her 
personal attendants had from the first day of the 
Revolution left her under some pretext or other, or 
else had been, as I have already related, dismissed 
by her. She understood that in the critical position 
in which she was placed she ought not to attract at- 
tention to her person or her doings, and that the 
fewer people she kept around her the less she was 
in danger of becoming the subject of gossip. But 
she could not prevent certain monarchist leaders 
from conspiring against the new government that 
had assumed the task of liquidating the errors of the 

207 



2o8 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

HohenzoUerns and from associating her name and 
that of her children with their conspiracies. The 
staunchest Junkers had lost every hope of seeing 
William II return to Germany. His ignominous 
flight had made it impossible ; and as for the Crown 
Prince, he was so generally despised that his name 
did not once come up during the several meetings of 
the old Conservative party in Prussia. He had 
made himself entirely impossible, and apart from 
his want of moral backbone he was not intelhgent 
enough to be able to rally around him the few ad- 
herents of the old German monarchical principles 
still left in Prussia. His children were there, how- 
ever, and it was upon his eldest boy that the hopes 
of these people rested. He might be brought up 
according to the new ideas which would hence- 
forth preside at the destinies of the nation whose 
arrogance had brought about the greatest calamity 
the world had ever known, and whose humihation 
had even surpassed this arrogance ; and if only his 
mother would lend herself to the plans in which he 
was to become concerned, there might still be left 
some chances for the HohenzoUerns to maintain 
themselves in their former position. That this hope 
existed is proved by a speech made during a politi- 



The Necessity of Resignation 209 

cal meeting of the Monarchist party which was held 
about the beginning of the year 1919 in Bonn, when 
one of the leaders of this party expressed regret 
that the Kaiser had been so badly advised as to fly 
to Holland instead of remaining with his people. 
"Had he done so," declared this gentleman, "it 
would have been better for him, for his House, and 
for our Fatherland!" 

Remaining with his people would, however, have 
required a courage and strength of mind which Wil- 
ham II did not possess. To lament his destiny and 
intrigue against the new rulers of the country which 
he had led to its ruin was easy for him, but to play 
the game would have been impossible to his shallow^ 
cruel, dishonest character. His daughter-in-law 
was better aware of it than any one else, and this 
was one of the reasons why she refused to counte- 
nance any efforts to use her children as pawns in 
the dangerous chess match which had been started 
by those who still nursed the hope of picking up 
what was left of this old regime that had crumbled 
into such complete ruin. 

Nevertheless, she consented to receive the differ- 
ent political men who craved her permission to dis- 
cuss with her the conditions under which Germany 



210 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

would have to find her way in the future. She also 
tried, whilst arranging her daily existence on strict- 
ly economical lines, to save what could be saved of 
the personal fortune of her sons. She wished and 
hoped at this particular period of her new existence 
to bring them up as private individuals in their own 
country, and not to make exiles and outcasts out of 
them. Tliis was the reason why she determined to 
remain in Potsdam as long as she was allowed to do 
so. Her first impulse had been to rent some small 
villa or cottage in the country far from the scenes 
of her former splendour. But she was told that if 
she did this, the attention of the pubhc would be 
awakened, and that this might bring about unpleas- 
ant consequences. The very removal of her private 
property from the Marble Palace in Potsdam, and 
from the one which she had occupied in Berhn, 
would be sure to give rise to all kinds of comments, 
and lead to accusations that she was taking away 
some of the property belonging to the State, and 
in the excited condition of the pubhc mind every 
occasion for it to find a pretext of breaking out into 
riots or mutiny ought to be avoided. Personally 
the Crown Princess was respected by all parties, 
and she had no cause to fear any insult from the 



The Necessity of Resignation 211 

mob or aii}^ annoyances from the new government. 
Ceeile had to acknowledge that those who advised 
her in that sense were right, and she frankly said so 
to the newly appointed President of the German 
Republic, Mr. Ebert, when he called upon her to 
discuss different financial questions that required 
to be settled, before she could decide at last what 
she could do, and where she might be able to take 
up her residence for the future. 

These interviews which she had with the head of 
the country over which she had once thought that 
she would rule were of course painful for the former 
Crown Princess, but she did not shirk them. 
On the contrary, she spoke with him quite frankly 
as to her prospects, and the system of education 
which she meant to adopt in the bringing up of her 
children. Her eldest boy, who had already shown 
some of the arrogance of his father and grandfather, 
was of course the great object of her solicitude. She 
wished him to become an honest and a useful man. 
Germany, the old Germany that had cheered her on 
her wedding day, was dead and gone, had disap- 
peared in the tempest it had itself aroused; but a 
new Germany might arise, desirous of atoning for 
the crimes of the past, willing to accept with due 



212 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

submission the chastisement it deserved. It was 
for this new Germany that Cecile of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin meant to bring up her boys, it w^as of this 
new Germany that she wanted them to become citi- 
zens. 

She did not confide any of her thoughts on this 
subject to her family. Neither her brothers-in-law 
nor their wives would have understood her. And 
communications with her mother were difficult, if 
not impossible, at least such communications as she 
would have desired and in which she could have im- 
burdened her weary soul. In her lonehness and 
misery it was almost a relief for the Princess to be 
able to talk with a man like Ebert, who had no 
personal interest in advising her, and who perhaps 
had some pity for her in his heart. 

When the Empress left Potsdam for Ameron- 
gen, Cecile drove with her to the station. Augusta 
started in the early hours of the morning, accom- 
panied only by two or three faithful attendants who 
had declared that they could not leave her, but 
would share her exile. It was a strange departure, 
and very different from any of the journeys which 
the unhappy woman who was leaving her home and 
coimtry, probably for ever, had undertaken in for- 



The Necessity of Resignation 213 

mer days. There was no special train to bear her 
away, no guard of honour on the platform of the 
station to play the national anthem; no courtiers 
massed at the door of her car to wish her God speed ; 
no flowers presented to her by Court officials in gold 
embroidered uniforms. The only sight which met 
her weary eyes was that of soldiers in grey coats 
getting out of the trucks in which they had travelled 
from the front, who did not even throw a glance at 
her, and the only man who seemed to trouble about 
the train in which she was to take her place was the 
station m.aster, holding a lantern, the faint glare of 
which guided her steps in the twilight of that winter 
morning. In spite of the placidity of her tempera- 
ment, she who a few days before had been the Em- 
press of Germany must have felt the contrast be- 
tween what was and what had been, but if such was 
the case she did not show it, and her daughter-in- 
law looked far more unhappy when they parted and 
exchanged their last embrace and last good-bye. 

Cecile sent away the carriage that had brought 
her to the station and walked home with a sinking 
heart. She felt that the last link which had bound 
her to her former existence had snapped. The new 
one had to be organised on quite different hnes. The 



214 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

one great problem that troubled her was whether 
she would be allowed to carry out this organisation. 
Vague apprehensions filled her soul for which she 
could not account, but which weighed heavily on her 
mind. The problem of the future was daily be- 
coming more complicated and more difficult for her, 
and she had no one near to help her, or to give her 
strength to withstand the new sorrows which per- 
haps awaited her. Something seemed to tell her 
that she had reached the culminating point of her 
destiny, and that she stood at the parting of the 
ways which led to the great unknown. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
THE FRIEND IN NEED 

The Crown Princess would have liked nothing 
better than to go to Switzerland and join her moth- 
er. But she felt that she had not the right to take 
her children away to a foreign land without their 
father's consent, unless actually compelled to do so. 
She therefore wrote to the Crown Prince, asking 
him for the authorisation which she considered her- 
self morally obliged to obtain from him. She re- 
ceived no reply to this letter except a curt com- 
munication from a lawyer asking her to grant him 
an audience in order to discuss * 'certain important 
business matters which her husband has asked him 
to communicate to her." Much surprised, Cecile 
fixed an hour for this interview, when she was in- 
formed that an action for divorce had been filed 
against her, on the grounds of her having violated 
her marriage vows. 

This was too much, and the insulted and outraged 
woman ordered from her presence the bearer of this 

215 



2i6 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

insolent message, declaiTQg at the same time that 
she would fight the action to the last, and in her 
turn expose all the indignities she had been subject- 
ed to by the miserable creature whom to her sorrow 
she had married, hoping to find in him a compan- 
ion and a protector. 

But when the lawyer had departed, the Princess, 
tliinMng over all that he had told her, gave way to 
complete despair. She knew herself to be entirely 
innocent of the accusations hurled against her by 
an unprincipled man, but the difficulty consisted in 
proving her innocence. He might find any number 
of false witnesses ready to swear to a he, and she 
was so helpless: she knew so well that with the 
change which had taken place in her position she 
would not find one single person willing to help 
her, or even to advise her as to what lawyer she 
ought to employ to defend her. Of course she would 
write to her mother, but the Grand Duchess Anas- 
tasia could not come to her, and besides, her pres- 
ence at her side might only complicate matters. 
Cecile was so disgusted that had it not been for her 
children she would most certainly have tried to get 
away into another country and leave the Crown 
Prince to do what he liked. But there were her 



The Friend in Need 217 

sons and daughters to think of. She had to defend 
herself for their sakes; they could not be allowed 
to go through life thinking of their mother as a vile 
woman. These small mites were also friendless but 
for her; if she did not care for them no one else 
would, and even if they could join their father, it 
would only be for their moral ruin, for what kind 
of an education could they receive from a man who 
did not hesitate to calumniate his own wife ? Cecile 
was perfectly well aware that the Crown Prince 
wanted to get rid of her in order to be free to live 
his own life in company with the low creatures 
whom he had made his friends ; and the thought that 
her sons might also be brought later on into contact 
with these same people was well-nigh intolerable 
to her. The great question, however, was what she 
was going to do, and what in general she could do. 
She spent a sleepless night and rose in the morn- 
ing with all manner of wild ideas floating through 
her brain, one of which was to apply to the new 
government for protection. But she soon realised 
that this was impossible as it woul3 only be a lower- 
ing of her personal dignity and would avail her 
nothing because she would probably be told that 
she ought to consult a lawyer rather than trouble 



2i8 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

the new administration with the story of her per- 
sonal wrongs and woes. Her brothers-in-law were 
worse than useless as they would most certainl}^ 
have sided with the Crown Prince ; her own brother 
was in exile, she did not even know where ; the only 
resource she could think of was her mother, and 
finally she decided to seek her aid. 

At this point in her meditations a servant en- 
tered the room and told her that a strange gentle- 
man, to all appearance a foreigner, asked to be re- 
ceived by her. Cecile imagined that it might be 
another messenger from the Crown Prince and or- 
dered that he be shown in. To her stupefaction 
there appeared her American friend of bygone days, 
the man from whom she had parted under the shad- 
ow of the great Sphinx, a few years before, and 
whom she had never expected to see again. 

"You, you!" she gasped. 

"Yes, it is I," he rephed, "did you think that I 
had forgotten you?" 

The Princess remained speechless, but two great 
tears fell down her cheeks as she put out both her 
hands towards this friend who had thus suddenly 
appeared in the hour of her need. 

"I told you that if the day should ever come when 



The Friend in Need 219 

you might require me, I would be there," he said. 
"I know all, and I have come here to see what can 
be done for you. I have come to claim that friend- 
ship which you offered me the last time we were to- 
gether, and which I was then compelled to refuse 
for your sake. Will you give it to me now?" 

He drew her towards him, and for the first time 
in her life Cecile could lay her head against the 
shoulder of the man of whom she had thought so 
much, and whose remembrance had filled her soul 
for so many long years. She could at last weep in 
his arms, and it seemed a relief to be able to shed 
those burning tears that had scalded her eyes so 
often, when she had been compelled to suppress 
them, and to swallow them with a breaking heart. 
She forgot everything in that moment of supreme 
ecstasy: the danger in which she stood, her hus- 
band's infamy, the loss of her great position, and 
the uncertainty of her future. She only realised 
that at last she would be defended and protected 
by a strong and brave man, as strong and as brave 
as the country whence he came. 

It was not difficult for him to persuade her after 
that to communicate with lawyers of great ability 
whom he brought to her, and who accepted the task 



220 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

of defending her, and of beginning in her name an- 
other action, also for divorce, against the Crown 
Prince. His conduct towards her had been so no- 
torious that there was no doubt she could obtain a 
verdict in her favour, together with the custody of 
her children. She was no longer the Crown Prin- 
cess of Germany; she was plain Mrs. Frederick 
William HohenzoUern, and as such she had the 
right to appeal to the protection of the laws of the 
country of which she had become a simple citizen. 
These would not fail her, and she might reasonably 
hope for the freedom which all that she had en- 
dured and suffered in the past had given her the 
right to claim. 

All this took some time to settle and to arrange, 
and then the Princess's friend once more came to 
her. 

"I must now bid you good-bye," he said. "I 
leave you in good hands and my presence here is no 
longer necessary. When all is over I shall come 
back." 

She looked at him reproachfully. 

"Are you really going away?" she enquired. "I 
thought we had done with all this nonsense ; I hoped 
you would remain here until I became free. Who 



The Friend in Need 221 

is to advise me, and to help me when you are gone?" 

"You will have people to help you," he replied. 
"I have arranged all that. But don't you under- 
stand that now, particularly, you have to be more 
careful than you have ever been. My presence here 
would only compromise you and give your enemies 
the opportunity which they seek to injure and to 
libel you. I must go because I love you so well, 
and you must not prevent me from doing so. But 
I shall come back, and then . . . then, Cecile ..." 
He opened his arms, and she flew into them, happy 
at last. 

"My children, my children ..." she murmured. 

"They will be my children also," he said gravely. 
"Cecile, you will not fail me this time? I have 
waited for you so long." 

"No, I shall not fail you," she replied, and there 
were tears in her voice. "I shall never fail you." 

He bent down and kissed her brow ; then quietly 
left the room, and Berhn the next day. 

The girl who had been the Crown Princess of 
Germany was alone once more, and yet not alone, 
because she knew that there existed in the world a 
true heart who would remain faithful to her. She 



22.2 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

accepted the separation with cahn dignity, and she 
set herself to live the kind of existence he would 
approve of, the kind of life he would like her to lead. 
She went through all the unpleasant duties with 
which she saw herself confronted; she appealed to 
the law to free her from the moral monster to whom 
she was bound; she bravely submitted to the many 
disagreeable consequences of the line of action she 
had so resolutely adopted. She submitted to the 
cross-questioning of inquisitive judges, eager to 
hear the details of her domestic life with the former 
heir to the German empire. She thought only 
about her children, whom she was determined never 
to forsake. And when she was alone in the even- 
ing, in her own room, she would sit down by the 
window, and think of the new country she would 
go to one day, to that great country where every 
man was free, and where there existed brave, splen- 
did fellows like that friend of hers who had ap- 
peared in the hour of her need. She looked eagerly 
towards the future — a future when she would know 
peace and rest ; and the image of a small house on 
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, a photograph of 
which she had seen, would rise before her weary 
eyes, and she would see herself sitting on that white 



The Friend in Need 223 

terrace, looking at the blue waves, beside a man 
whose earnest, grey eyes were tenderly looking into 
hers. Many months must elapse before she could 
be there, but they had somehow to be lived through 
and to be endured, and she did not rebel. She had 
found at last what was far better than her former 
rank, than the jewels with which she had been 
loaded, and the splendour and pomp that had 
surrounded her; she had found the secret of hap- 
piness. 

We leave her thus, staring at the stars in the bril- 
liant moon-lit skies and contemplating, perhaps for 
the last time, the flowers and orange trees that or- 
nament the gardens and parks of this Potsdam 
where she had believed that she would one day rule. 
Everything that had been a part of her former life 
had crumbled to pieces around her ; all the magnifi- 
cence amidst which she had moved had vanished 
and disappeared. The ruin was complete, but it 
had not claimed her as one of its victims. She had 
emerged out of it a new woman about to begin a 
new life in a new country. The Crown Princess of 
Germany was no more, but Cecile of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin was thinking with pride and with an eager 



224 The Disillusions of a Crown Princess 

joy of the day when she would be at last plain 
Mrs. ... But it is still too early to tell the reader 
the name under which this daughter of Emperors 
will be known in the near future. 



THE END 



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